State rejects ground-water study plan

Friday, April 21, 2000 | 11:07 a.m.

A plan by Henderson's industrial plants to analyze downstream ground water for possible contamination from 50 years of chemical manufacturing has been rejected by the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection.

Basic Management Inc. engineers have found contaminated ground water on the plant site from chemicals dumped by six current and former companies, and state environmental officials now want to see if that contamination has spread east of Boulder Highway into Pittman and the site of a proposed master-planned community.

But Robert Kelso, the division's corrective action officer, said the BMI plan to study the ground water did not offer a comprehensive analytical approach.

"There are still things that need to be cleaned up and investigated," Kelso said. "The full extent of the ground water contamination has not been investigated."

It could take more than a month for a preliminary ground water analysis to be completed after the state approves the analysis plan, Kelso said.

The ground water plan could be in the state's hands within two weeks, Brenda Pohlmann of the state's Las Vegas office said. The division will oversee the cleanup.

The Henderson Industrial Site Steering Committee, made up of Titanium Metals Corp., Pioneer Chlor Alkali, Kerr McGee Corp., Basic Management Inc. and former site tenants Stauffer Chemical Co. and Montrose, will pay for the ground water analysis and cleanup.

BMI is working separately to clean up 2 million cubic yards of soils contaminated by the plants' evaporation ponds east of Boulder Highway on the proposed site of Provenance, a 2,400-acre master-planned community adjacent to the site of the yet-to-be- funded Nevada State College.

"That soil is going to be cleaned up whether there is development or no development," BMI President Dan Stewart said Wednesday. "The ground water analysis, however, will not hold up Provenance."

The cleanup effort dates to 1993, when the state and BMI agreed to an industrial cleanup plan that includes moving the tainted soil. At the time, Henderson officials also brought up the issue of possible contamination in the ground water, which runs 70 feet or deeper under the Provenance site, Stewart said.

Consultants for the proposed housing development studied the ground water issue thoroughly and concluded there was no threat to public health and safety, Stewart said. However, the state wants BMI to study the ground water in a much broader area and has refused to accept the consultant's work as an acceptable plan.

Ground water contamination was found under Palm City, another proposed development about 2 miles downstream from the BMI plants. Rhodes Design and Development Corp., which planned the upscale homes and a golf course, went bankrupt and the development went into receivership. No homes have been built. Ground water samples at the site contained traces of chloroform, toluene, DDT, arsenic, chromium, cobalt, copper, lead, zinc and radiation.

"There are still potential concerns with the ground water, such as perchlorate," Stewart said. Kerr McGee still makes ammonium perchlorate, a rocket fuel booster, at the site. American Pacific, former owner of the Pacific Engineering & Production Co., which also produced ammonium perchlorate, moved its operations to Cedar City, Utah, after explosions and fire leveled its Henderson plant on May 4, 1988.

But state and county officials have found perchlorate in Lake Mead, which supplies Southern Nevada's drinking water, as recently as March.

There is no federal or state health standard for perchlorate in drinking water.