The City's Pilot Recharge Project Looks Even Worse Than Before. By Jim Wright WHY SHOULD CENTRAL Arizona Project water be recharged on a site which appears to be contaminated? That's the question The Weekly asked more than a year ago in a story about a recharge project proposed by the City of Tucson and the Central Arizona Water Conservation District (CAWCD). The project, officially known as the Pima Mine Road Recharge Project, was to be built just south of the city and east of Interstate 19. The site is located less than 100 feet from an abandoned chemical laboratory. The lab, where mining chemicals were tested, is just across the street from where the city and CAWCD want to build a test facility to put 10,000 acre feet of CAP water into the underground aquifer. The chemical lab's grounds show other tell-tale signs of possible contamination: train tracks which have been dissolved by chemical dumping into the nearby Santa Cruz River, now-empty settlement ponds, and maybe a dozen or so underground chemical storage tanks. A few months ago visitors could read a sign, since removed, on the perimeter fence: "Danger From Hazardous Materials." Yet none of the obvious warnings were enough to concern those notoriously stubborn Tucson Water officials. When confronted with the site's potential hazards, water officials acted quickly to assure Tucson Mayor George Miller and the City Council that everything was under control. In a memorandum to then-City Manager Michael Brown, former Tucson Water Director C. Kent McClain cited four separate tests conducted over several years which indicated contaminants were not present. The Council quietly accepted McClain's report. But shortly after he'd sent his report to the Council, The Weekly asked McClain if he, or any member of his staff, had ever inspected the abandoned chemical facility. McClain responded, "Of course not. That's private property. We'd be trespassing." Even when ASARCO, the owner of the 579-acre proposed recharge site, told the city and the state the site "may well be contaminated" from the abandoned lab, the city didn't budge from its position that its chosen location was free from contamination. Now comes other evidence the city was wrong. In addition to years of contamination from the old chemical facility, the area selected as a recharge site is on retired agricultural lands. In a briefing report submitted to the to the CAWCD Board earlier this month, John Newman, CAWCD assistant general manager, at long last dropped the other shoe--he told the group the site showed signs of contamination from chemicals used while the land was under agricultural production. According to Newman's report, "Residual levels of fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides exist in the soils, as well as possible nitrates in the local groundwater." Newman says soil tests conducted by the state last August revealed contamination from several agricultural chemicals, including DDT and the herbicides Dolapon and Meloprop. Additionally, the state also found DDE, a toxic pollutant which results from the breakdown of DDT, in the soil. But Newman says the contaminants found during the August testing were not only "all below the state's Residential Health Based Guidance Levels, but the herbicides Dolapon and Meloprop were only found at soil levels three to four feet deep." He adds the Dolapon and Meloprop would be scraped from the site when recharge gets underway. The CAWCD official confesses he's not sure if the contaminants found at the site were below standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency. Newman says his agency was committed to a full examination of the site to assure the project would be located on an environmentally safe and contamination-free area, as mandated by the provisions of Proposition 200, the City of Tucson's clean water ordinance passed by voters in November 1995. The ordinance prohibits the city from recharging in contaminated areas. If contaminants are to be found at the Pima Mine Road site, says Newman, it's better they're found "during the pilot phase," rather than after. To double-check for possible contaminants, Newman adds, the pilot project will drop a test well across from the former chemical facility. He says the state will also investigate several other issues of potential contamination, including the unusual abundance of dead birds (reported by a resident living near the proposed site), and the potential of airborne contaminants from soil polluted for years by the abandoned chemical facility and from agricultural chemical use. The airborne contaminants could be blown directly into the open recharge ponds planned for the site, critics charge, creating the potential for harm for Tucson Water customers. But the city and CAWCD have more woes than just the possibility of a contaminated recharge site. The land itself has yet to be purchased. ASARCO, say city officials, continues to up the purchase price for the land. Originally, the city thought it would be able to purchase the site for about $300,000. That figure now appears completely unreal. ASARCO now maintains the city/state recharge facility could damage its leasing opportunities for a future sand-and-gravel mining operation. Condemnation proceedings to allow the city to force the purchase of the site are currently scheduled for a Superior Court hearing sometime in May. ASARCO now estimates the value of its proposed sand-and-gravel lease to be $2.3 million. If ASARCO continues to kick up sand over the purchase price, it may be some time before the city/state project can even test for contaminants in the groundwater. Tucson Water has already spent $1 million for planning, permitting, design and development of the project, not to mention all the bucks spent on tests to prove to the City Council that no contamination exists.

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