June 2, 2005


County supervisors vote to help clean creeks of mercury contamination

Ohio-based Meyers Industries will share project’s costs with county

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

The Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved May 25 a settlement agreement with state and federal authorities to continue to clean up mercury contamination in Almaden Quicksilver County Park.

The judgment, also called a consent decree, came after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the California Department of Fish and Game put the county under notice that unless it and other parties took action to restore alleged degradation to biological resources such as waterways and their habitat they could be responsible for damages of between $10 and $42 million.

Background
The county purchased the park from New Idria Mining and Chemical Company, the predecessor to Meyers Industries, in the early 1970s and created Almaden Quicksilver County Park.

Soil samples taken at the park in 1986 by the Department of Toxic Substances Control contained mercury levels sufficient to place it on the state superfund list of hazardous waste sites.

In October of 1987, the department issued a remedial action order for the park’s cleanup. The county removed more than 100,000 cubic yards of calcines—discarded rocks heated to extract mercury. The operation’s cost was partly reimbursed by prior mining and insurance companies and other parties.

In April of 2000, the county was identified as a potentially responsible party by the U.S. Department of Interior, Office of the Solicitor and the California Department of Fish and Game for the alleged injuries to natural resources from the discharge of mercury in the Guadalupe River watershed that empties into the San Francisco Bay.

Other potentially responsible parties mentioned in the settlement include the Santa Clara Valley Water District, the City of San Jose, the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District, Meyers Industries, Inc., and the Guadalupe
Rubbish Disposal Company.

The federal and state agencies seeking restitution were trying to recover damages originally estimated to be between $10 and $42 million for alleged injuries to steelhead salmon and clapper rail birds.

Under the agreement the county will be involved in three of four calcines-removal projects, including removing calcines from three locations at the former Hacienda furnace yard, by Almaden Road and the park’s entrance, with enhancement of the riparian habitat (Los Alamitos Creek) in the same location. Meyers Industries and the county will equally share the cleanup’s estimated cost of between $1.5 and $2 million. The county’s share will likely be between $750,000 to $1 million.

The second project will require the district to take the lead to remove calcines from the foot of Mine Hill (located in the park) extending out to Almaden Road at Hicks Road. The district and the Guadalupe Rubbish Company will pay an estimated $3.2 million to clean this section. The county owns the upper reaches of the project and the district owns the lower areas.

The county is not contributing any funds for this cleaning effort, but will allow the district access to the upper portion of Jacques Gulch, the park’s area with the most amounts of Mercury traces left. The area is located within park boundaries. The county will allow the district to deposit calcines at the San Francisco open cut, an existing calcines depository located above Mine Hill.

The third project will require the district, with the assistance of Guad-alupe Rubbish, to fund and oversee the removal of substantial growth of non-native cane along 14 miles of the Coyote Creek.

Finally, the fourth project will require the Mid-Peninsula Open Space Regional District to implement a predator control project estimated to cost $271,000 to protect shore birds and implement a habitat restoration project at Ravenswood Marsh, a bayside property located in San Mateo County.

The money to pay for the county’s portion of the latest cleanup effort will come from its Park Charter Fund. Had the supervisors not approved the consent decree and the other agreements the county could have been exposed to potential liability for the alleged damage to the natural resources without assistance from the other potentially responsible parties, said Deputy County Counsel Kathryn A. Berry.

Reaction to settlement
“They’re (federal and state agencies) saying that it is not good enough to remove the contaminants by prior mining companies but you must also replace the animals lost,” said Deputy County Counsel Kathryn A. Berry, adding that, “The explanation for loss of habitat and biological resources is more likely from urban development.”

Berry added that the county contended federal and state agencies were too late to argue the alleged harm to wildlife from the presence of mercury in the watershed, but decided to settle because it would have had to spend a lot of money to prove it in court.

“We decided that the better course would be to take the money that we would spend on litigation and put it into projects,” Berry said.

Regulatory authorities argue that the mercury residues found at the park, called “elemental mercury” are bio-available and accumulating in the food chain, which can cause harm from prolonged exposure.

“The mercury clean up is not targeted toward human health but it’s targeted toward the health of fish in Los Alamitos Creek,” Berry said.

One of the challenges for the county will be that by disturbing the creek with the new cleanup effort it could end up doing more environmental damage than if it were left alone, Berry explained.

“You can spend a lot of money trying to improve a stream that’s still going to be terrible habitat for a fish. We can take the mercury out but it’s still unlivable,” she said. “The problem in many areas is not the mercury; it’s poor habitat.”

Kitty Monahan, president of the New Almaden Quicksilver County Park Association, said the cleaning participants would have to study how to proceed with the cleanup operation.

Environmentalists have warned about the dangers of mercury cautioning consumers to the possible presence of mercury in fish caught in the Bay which may have consumed plants contaminated with small traces of the mineral, known to be harmful to living organisms in high concentrations.

“They’re going to have to study how to do the cleanup,” Monahan said. “You have to get these tailings out of the creek bed and how do you do that and where do you dump them?”

Monahan admitted that her organization hasn’t been concerned about the alleged contamination because “we don’t think there’s a problem.”

Berry noted the county has already spent almost $7 million to clean up the most affected parts of the park under a prior claims order, allowing the county to fully open the park in 1999. Before that, much of the park was gated off. “To the extent it gets the last areas of the park in a way that satisfies a legal obligation it’s a good thing, but at some point you can end up spending millions more and the environment is no better,” she said.

Santa Clara County Supervisor Donald Gage, who represents District one, which includes the 4,000-acre park, said through Santa Clara County Director of Public Affairs Gwendolyn Mitchell that, “although we inherited the problem we’re committed to cleaning up the park. This will be a benefit to the environment and to residents who will have greater access to the park.”