October 9, 2008

ValleyViewpoints

Another reader asks for Measure A passage

Editor,
California has lost over 70 hospitals in the last decade, and right here in Santa Clara County, we’ve seen the closure of San Jose Medical Center and the announced closure of Los Gatos Community Hospital. Santa Clara County already has among the lowest ratio of available hospital beds per resident in the state.

Valley Medical Center is a Level One Trauma Center, the highest-level hospital facility, able to treat the most serious accident and emergency patients. No matter where you go for your healthcare, if you are the victim of a serious emergency or accident anywhere in Santa Clara County, you will likely be taken to VMC’s trauma center.

In response the healthcare disaster of the Northridge Quake of 1994, the state legislature passed a law requiring all hospital to meet strict new seismic safety standards by 2013. Valley Medical Center, our county hospital and Level One Trauma Center, must rebuild or retrofit non-compliant buildings built in the 1960s and the 1970s. Without seismic upgrades, Valley Medical Center will lose over 270 hospital beds and be forced to close its trauma, burn and neonatal units.

The resulting shortage of hospital beds and reduced trauma services could be catastrophic—even under normal operating conditions—to every other hospital in Santa Clara County. In the event of a major earthquake or disaster, this catastrophe could become a nightmare for the health care system in Santa Clara County and its residents.

That’s why I’m supporting Measure A on the November ballot to approve the funding for seismic upgrades at Valley Medical Center and to ensure that Valley Medical Center will be standing and able to provide trauma services, and serve the community if and when the next earthquake or major disaster strikes Santa Clara County.

Voting YES on Measure A is a matter of life and death for all of us. Visit www.vmcmatters.com for more information.

Wilma Lee
Cambrian Park

Open letter about the Guadalupe Watershed Basin Plan Amendment

Editor,
A large part of the problem with the Guadalupe Watershed TMDL is that it does not recognize or specify the chemistry of mercury. Los Alamitos Creek, Quicksilver County Park and the entire watershed has almost all of its mercury in the non-reactive species of cinnabar and elemental mercury. That could easily explain why we have not experienced health problems related to mercury in the New Almaden community.

The goal of 0.1 parts per million (ppm) level of total mercury is below the 0.11 ppm level of methyl mercury that is considered a low level in tuna fish by the EPA. Why should our non-reactive dirt be cleaner than tuna? The EPA standard for mercury in residential soils is 23 ppm, and it is based on mercury chloride, a poisonous, reactive form of mercury. When Smith, Ruby, Nicholson, and Schoof did invitro studies of elemental mercury in soil, they found that 2,500 ppm of liquid elemental mercury was a reasonable goal.

You must take the species of mercury into account in your action plan. The TMDL’s goal is to reduce methyl mercury in fish, and water. The Solar Bee water circulators have reduced methyl mercury by 95 percent. What reason is left to “clean up” non-reactive mercury? We are trying to define and solve a problem here. Please make three changes to the document.

1. Change the 0.1 ppm total mercury in soil fines to 0.2 ppm methyl mercury.

Reason: We need only worry about bioavailable species of mercury.

2. Put purchase of and testing of solar-powered water circulators before sediment removal.
Reason: Water circulators have removed 95 percent of the methyl mercury from the reservoirs. They are not only effective, but they are also lower in cost. Disrupting calcines with mercury oxides in them, will release bioavailable mercury to the creeks and reservoirs, and cost up to a billion dollars with no likely reduction of methyl mercury

3. Change the words responsible parties to Santa Clara County, Santa Clara Valley Water District and previous mine owners.

Reason: You will not get any help by threatening homeowners. If the RWQCB attempts to hold individual homeowners jointly and severally liable for the cleanup, it will likely decay into useless lawsuits and delay reasonable pollution prevention efforts

We hope, as do you, to bring clarity and reason to this process. Please correct the errors in the Basin Plan Amendment.

Roberta Lamons

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