LAKEPORT >> Officials recently confirmed than an engineering firm hired by Lake County has been working the last eight months to investigate volatile organic compounds found in the ground water near the Eastlake Landfill.
According to state documents, samples taken around April 2015 revealed that five of the landfill’s monitoring wells had trace amounts of trichloroethane and other related chemicals.
Two of them also contained higher concentrations of the hydrocarbon benzene, which at 1.9 and 1.3 parts per billion was more than the state’s maximum contamination level of 1.
“Based on Water Board staff’s review of the data and the site investigation reports, the landfill is the source of the [compound] releases to groundwater, and has impacted the beneficial uses of [it],” the documents said.
This led to an abatement order from the Central Valley Water Quality Control Board in July, public services director Lars Ewing said. By November the county contracted with SHN Consulting Engineers & Geologists to get a better picture on the size of the plume.
It was initially worth $12,800, but due to the required drilling of many temporary wells, they recently requested an additional $13,460 to complete it. The request was approved by the board of supervisors in its consent agenda on June 7.
But despite incomplete investigation, environmental health director Ray Ruminski said the contamination doesn’t threaten the public since the volume of the groundwater is low and therefore not practical for use.
“It’s a small water resource,” he said, adding that the likely source of the contaminants is the leachate from an old unit of the landfill that is not in use. The current one is lined and uses new technology to manage leachate effectively.
The engineering firm has made a few observations of its own. For instance, they noted that concentrations are higher in rainier seasons.
“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Ewing said. “We will be continuing to submit reports and do anything the water board directs us to do.”
