Escondido Neighbors United

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Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) has released their document about the community around the Oak Creek site. DTSC Oak Creek Community Profile 
Many of you may remember receiving a survey in March.  There were 58 logged responses even though the turn-around time was short.  There were many detailed concerns about the project provided to DTSC (see page 9-10 of the document). We remain disappointed that off-site neighbors will still not be notified if there is a contaminant concentration in the airborne dust at elevated levels. If the levels exceed 75% of the action levels, then workers will use personal protective equipment and then dust control measures will be used.  However, we have asked that neighbors be notified so they can take whatever measure they deem  necessary to protect themselves.  This remains unaddressed. DTSC has proposed a land use covenant that will not allow the use of groundwater under the site for any reason due to the presence of Chatham contamination. (P.6).  Fifty-three respondents had a high or moderate level of interest in the site and 41 said they would attend a meeting on the issue.  Most people (55) had heard about the site and the highest point of contact was ‘Neighbors’!!!!  YAY for neighborhood organizing. 🙂
The next steps will be as follows: DTSC will issue the cleanup plan for a 30-day comment period, issue a Fact Sheet, officially notice the comment period in the paper, and hold a community meeting.
We thank DTSC for including the community in their actions and we look forward to the opportunity to review and comment on the clean up plan.
Stay tuned.

Here is DTSC’s response DTSC to ENU response to Feb letter  to our comment letter filed in February included in the ENU Blog Post Feb 16 2015.  The timing is a little confusing as we received it just hours after we sent our most recent April 22, 2015 letter.  We hope in the future, DTSC can let us know if and when they will respond to issues so we can have more seamless coordination.
At any rate, based on this response, it appears some of our comments and concerns were not well understood  and some of the responses are disappointing.
We are especially frustrated that the September, 2014 promise to take additional action if the contamination went south of Via Rancho is, now, not being pursued.  We will have more to say in the future about this.
And, just to reiterate, ENU did not make up the claim that sampling was not allowed to two wells on the Oak Creek site, we merely quoted the PRP Group’s report that states ‘…property owners did not grant access..‘ (p. 6) and the results Table 5 which lists (No Access) as the status for the three wells on the Oak Creek site.  DTSC’s letter seems to miss one of our points that there is a regular plan for assessing the contamination and two of these wells were part of it and should have been sampled in October! Even if it is worked out for the April sampling, the data set is compromised.  This seems particularly important given all the comments about the ‘pulsing’ of the contamination elsewhere in DTSC’s response.

We will have more comments once our most recent letter and questions have been responded to but we wanted to be sure anyone interested had a chance to see this letter.

This time of year snakes and reptiles are coming out of hibernation.  If you see a snake you don’t want around, we found a great service for any one who may need
it.  Also, please find information below on how to tell the difference between rattlesnakes and totally harmless Gopher and King snakes.

Please keep this number by your phone.

Gopher Snakes and King Snakes- Learn the Difference

One snake wrangler mentioned that the main way people get bit by rattlesnakes is they start whacking at them with a shovel.  



Just Call TOM’S SNAKES and stay safe!!!

We hope that everyone today can stop and take a moment to appreciate our beautiful planet and all the support the Earth offers to us that makes our lives possible.  It is a good day to step outside and be grateful for the clean air and water available to us and see that it is a precious and finite resources.

For Escondido Neighbors, our environmental protection issues continue.   Here are a couple updates:

1.  Update on Chatham Waste Site

On April 15, we presented an update to the Regional Water Quality Control Board. Today we filed this letter  ENU to DTSC April 22 2015.  We have asked several questions of the regulators and hope to hear from them soon.

Many of you have seen the sampling trucks back in the neighborhood conducting the April sampling event for Chatham.   We will be interested to see if wells deJong 2 and 34-E4 are sampled in this round or not.  (For the regular October, 2014 event, the consultants reported that “property owners did not grant access to the Group for groundwater sampling in October 2014”) Although the data set is already compromised, we will hope these wells will be tested per the plan.

2.  Update on City of Escondido stormwater violations.
The city staff has responded to the Notice of Violation issued by the Regional Board.  You can read the response here  Escondido Response to MS4 NOV, April 13 2015.  We will have comments on this in the future.

For those of you interested in the stormwater permit, there will be some  Stormwater Permit Public Workshops where the Regional Board will be seeking input.  Please participate if you are interested.

3.  Save the Monarch for Earth Day
Something we all can do in Escondido is make our yards Butterfly Friendly.
Learn about Monarch Butterfly and what can be done to help save this species.
USFWS Monarch information  and the Monarch Watch

We can all do something to help preserve and protect our precious world!

Join Escondido Neighbors United in remembering –Every Day is Earth Day!

Please submit a survey to DTSC  today about your thoughts
on Oak Creek cleanup plan!!! 

And now for something completely different– GOOD NEWS on the Chatham waste site.

The Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), the agency in charge of oversight of the cleanup, directed the Chatham Group to propose options for removing the pollution from Felicita Creek.

In a letter DTSC March 17, 2015 letter to Chatham Group DTSC said that the The conditions of the Chatham Site 5-Year Remedy Review Report (RRR) to remove site-related contaminants discharging to Felicita Creek had not been met.  It states, the PRP Group “…only proposed additional surface water sampling locations.  Effective mitigation measures were not proposed.  Therefore, requirement No. 1 has not been met”


The letter goes on to state “The Update does not evaluate in detail the mechanism which would significantly reduce or stop the flow of site related contaminants to the creek.” and noted that in a recent meeting both the DTSC and the Regional Water Quality Control Board identified a number of sites and references where a variety of remedial techniques were used to address chlorinated plumes in surface water.

DTSC has required an Alternatives Analysis by April 2, 2015.

We offer our thanks to regulators at DTSC and the Water Board for this action to remove this pollution from our community.

There is a new major project in public review right now that many people may not know about but will impact all of us in SW Escondido.  The City is planning to lay new sewer lines and replace some old lines in under 3.4 miles of existing local roads.  This includes all of Felicita Road from Hamilton to Via Rancho and much of Park Drive.  The project will last 9 months.

The noticing was very limited and the comments on this project are due on April 1st.  Here is the notice Sewer Project Notice

And here is the  Draft Envl Document SW Sewer Replacement Mitigated Negative Declaration

This matters on several levels because these new sewer lines will set the stage for future annexations and will be dug into areas where the Chatham contaminated plume is present.

While it is good news that sewage lift stations that are currently at/over capacity will be shut down,  it is unclear from the document how much more capacity (read development) this action will allow.

It is of major concern to us that the trenching and excavation will happen in areas where the Chatham industrial waste plumes have been or are currently located.  The trenching will go at least 14 feet deep.  The city does not plan to develop the response plans for contaminated groundwater or vapors that might be released into the air until the project is underway– a significant failing of the draft document.   This could expose workers and nearby residents if not handled well.

We are also concerned this project is also a precursor to annexation of more areas.  A surprise revelation for many of us living in Southwest Escondido was that the Escondido General Plan includes many current county neighborhoods in Escondido ‘Sphere of Influence’ for the purposes of ultimately annexing us.   This was a shock for many county residents who thought our Escondido address was merely a convenient designation for mail etc…

Escondido Neighbors United will publish our comments once they are completed.  But, EVERYONE is encouraged to read and comment on this as well.  Bottom-line, there is not enough information in the draft Mitigated Negative Declaration to ensure that human health and the environment will be adequately protected.  More sampling and analysis needs to be done, response plans need to be developed and disclosed, and the document should be recirculated.

More soon.

During the Oak Creek public meeting last week, Sam Abed attacked, among others, two community residents, Fred Progner and Ron Forster, who had a Community Editorial published in the San Diego UT about our collective concerns about Oak Creek and Chatham.   SDUT Residents Seek Action

Today, Forster sent an annotated version of the Opinion piece with the references included. Annotated Opinion Editorial . Here is a text of the message accompanying the Annotated Editorial