community action = clean water
Activists and community volunteers in Morgan Hill, San Martin and Gilroy in Santa Clara County are organizing at the grassroots to fight toxic pollution, and they are winning.

In 2003, area residents learned that their drinking water was contaminated with perchlorate from a former Olin Corporation highway flare manufacturing site. They eventually learned that the plume of underground pollution extends more than ten miles from the site, impacting hundreds of public and private wells.

Setting aside their initial fears, community leaders formed the Perchlorate Community Advisory Group (PCAG) to work with water authorities for effective cleanup and to protecting public health while the cleanup was underway.

PCAG, whose meetings encourage public participation, now consists of commu-nity members, Central Coast Regional Water Board staff, the Santa Clara Valley Water District, and local government and agricultural interests. Led by Chairper-son Sylvia Hamilton, a former San Martin teacher, the group educated itself about groundwater geology, perchlorate health impacts, and treatment options.

Through PCAG’s oversight and efforts by Regional Board staff, families whose well water was contaminated received bottled water to replace it. The site of the original contamination has been cleaned up so that it no longer adds perchlorate contamination to the water, and groundwater contamination is dropping as a result.

In July, after years of study and community input, the Regional Board approved a PCAG-supported plan by which Olin will pump and treat contaminated ground water and then re-inject the perchlorate-free water underground for future use.

Clean Water Action is proud to be, at the invitation of this remarkable community, a part of PCAG, helping to restore safe drinking water.