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State threatens port with fines over dirt data

Published in the Stockton Record on 01/08/05

State threatens port with fines over dirt data

By Dana Nichols
Record Staff Writer
Published Saturday, January 8, 2005

STOCKTON -- State water-pollution regulators are threatening to fine the Port of Stockton as much as $1,000 a day if the port does not two weeks from now provide a long list of information on contaminated dirt the port sold over the past several years, including topographical maps of every place the dirt went.

The Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control letter dated Thursday says the port has failed since June to provided requested information.

Port of Stockton Director Richard Aschieris said Friday that the port is trying to cooperate with the water board but that it would be impossible to compile all the information by the Jan. 24 deadline. He said it would also be difficult to comply with laws that allow qualified contractors to complete the needed reports.

Aschieris said the port has already provided much of the information the water board has requested. He also said that in December, the port proposed a program for monitoring the risks posed by dirt at one dredge-disposal site and that regulators have not responded to that proposal, much less taken the time to determine whether the dredge spoils are truly toxic.

The dirt is not believed to be dangerous to people. It is largely sand dredged from river bottoms. It contains toxic metals such as nickel and copper that could leach into water and kill organisms living in the water.

The Central Valley Water Quality Control Board began scrutinizing the dredged dirt after more than 52,000 cubic yards of it was used for emergency repairs and improvements to a levee along Trapper Slough threatened by the June 3 flood of Jones Tract.

Tests found metals in that soil, which came from a port-owned dredge-spoils disposal site on Roberts Island. Pollution regulators began asking questions. They said they were promised information in August and October but got only a small part of it.

On Nov. 10, water board Storm Water Section Chief Bill Marshall wrote a letter in which he outlined ways in which the port broke the law by reusing dredge materials without getting necessary permission and by failing to submit a dredge-spoils reuse plan for each dredge-spoils storage site.

But Marshall decided against declaring the broken laws a "violation" in the letter.

Bill Jennings of the environmental watchdog group Deltakeeper said the board has been reluctant to enforce pollution laws at the port because of political pressure.

When regulators first started asking about the dirt in June, port officials wrote to several state legislators, who then wrote letters and placed phone calls to ask for leniency on the port's behalf

But Marshall said this week that it was his decision not to tell the port it was in violation of its permits. No politician pressured him to make that decision, he said.
"The reason for that is that it is a very sensitive situation," Marshall said.

He said a variety of agencies -- including the state Department of Water Resources and the California Department of Transportation -- were responding to an emergency during the June 3 levee break.

It didn't make sense to punish them for using the dirt to save a levee and nearby Highway 4, Marshall said.

Yet the port from October 2003 to fall 2004 also sold more than 200,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils for a variety of other uses from construction to levee repair, also without the required permission. That's enough dirt to nearly fill San Francisco's Transamerica Pyramid building.

"We're trying to deal with that issue right now," Marshall said. "One of the reasons (for not enforcing strictly) is this material is not a significant threat to water quality."

Port officials had long considered the dredge spoils to be "inert" waste, a classification that allowed them to easily dispose and store the material. With the scrutiny since June, however, all involved now agree it is really so-called "designated waste," a category that is not deemed hazardous to humans but that can pollute and kill organisms in water.

Marshall, port officials and others all acknowledge that dredging and reuse of the dredge spoils on levees and elsewhere has been going on for years. Now, reclamation districts, the Army Corps of Engineers and state water agencies are all looking closely at the fact that silt at the bottom of a river can change chemical properties when it comes into contact with air. The dredged dirt can become acidic and leach toxic metals.

And state law makes it illegal to discharge those metals into water where it can kill organisms.

"It is a pretty radical position to take," Marshall said. Then, changing his mind, he added: "Well it is not radical, because it complies with the law."

Marshall said he and other water regulators are not sure that the dredge spoils have hurt water quality. But also he said the port wasn't following the rules in its permit.

"They need to be complying with the permit, and obviously they were not complying with the permit."

He also said that it is common for agencies that have water-pollution permits to break the rules.

"We write these detailed permits and then people just don't read them thoroughly."

Port representatives, however, say that regulators are changing the rules by abruptly enforcing stringent requirements.

"Only suddenly has all this erupted into 'hmm, is this a good idea or not?' " geologist Steve Michelson, a consultant for the port, said of the recent scrutiny of dredge spoils.

A report the port submitted in December indicated that dredge spoils from various port sites were sold for use at hundreds, if not thousands, of locations such as beneath building foundations, in utility trenches, below roads, and even to plant nurseries.

This week's letter from the board said that report failed to give adequate details, for example, on 43,079 cubic yards of dirt sold to Alegre Trucking of Lodi.

Alegre Trucking owner Frank Alegre laughed when told that the port was being required to map the final resting place of all the dirt he bought.

"These people are out of their minds," Alegre said. "They have taken this way overboard. This stuff is not contaminated."

Alegre said that everything he transported ended up sealed below concrete or asphalt in places where it won't hurt water. "This just floors me, what they are making the port go through. It is sickening."

Aschieris said he hopes to meet with water-board officials next week to work out a compromise that would allow the port to do necessary studies and provide needed information.

"I would urge the board to partner with the port," he said.

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* To reach reporter Dana Nichols, phone (209) 546-8295 or e-mail dnichols@recordnet.com

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