A pipeline carrying contaminated groundwater from a local Superfund site needs to find a new route. Litchfield Elementary School District will not allow a water conveyance pipeline through Palm Valley Elementary School’s playfields.

The board voted 5-0 Tuesday to deny Crane Co. access to school property for a pipeline. “I recommend that it is prudent not to place the underground water conveyance pipeline on Palm Valley playfields,” Superintendent Julianne Lein said. “The general consensus of parents that we heard from . . . is that it is prudent to place the pipe under the concrete areas and that provides a better perceived barrier for student safety.”

The alternate route under the asphalt on 135th Avenue in Goodyear will take longer to complete and be more expensive. Crane Co. is responsible for the cleanup of the north plume after dangerous chemicals were put into the ground at the former Unidynamics facility in Goodyear, where defense and aerospace component systems were manufactured. The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. is responsible for the south plume cleanup.

The main contaminate was trichloroethylene, or TCE, which can cause cancer after prolonged exposure. The pipeline is part of the 1989 Environmental Protection Agency’s mandate to clean up the groundwater. Now, 11 wells pump contaminated water to four treatment facilities, which cleans out the contaminants and distributes the water back into the ground. Miles of pipeline are buried 4 to 5 feet below ground in Goodyear and Avondale.

The project engineer with AMEC Geomatrix, the consulting and engineering firm hired by Crane, said if the polluted water isn’t contained by the pipelines quickly, the plume will expand and drinking water wells could become contaminated. Goodyear already has lost three wells due to the polluted water.

Plume history … The contamination was caused in two sites, the former Unidynamics facility, north of Yuma Road, and the former Goodyear Aerospace Corp. that operated on Phoenix Goodyear Airport. Active operations took place at Unidynamics from 1963 to 1994. Crane is in charge of the Unidynamics site, while Goodyear Tire and Rubber is responsible for the aerospace site.

The Arizona Department of Health Services found the contamination in 1981 and the cleanup started in March 1990. There are two plumes of polluted water stretching about 9 miles across the Southwest Valley. The south plume mass is about 1 mile, while the north makes up about 8 miles, Goodyear Water Resources Manager Dave Iwanski said.

Officials with the EPA, Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, Liberty Water, Goodyear and district were on hand to answer questions.

Parents were mainly concerned about student safety. … EPA Toxicologist Stanford Smucker said the TCE being pumped through the pipes is so diluted from the water that it would not have any effect on student health even if the pipes were to leak.

For information about the Phoenix-Goodyear Airport (PGA) Superfund site, visit
http://www.epa.gov/region09/phoenix-goodyearairport.

I write not to challenge anything Mr. McIlroy says but rather to offer a bit of a different perspective to assumptions made respecting what sewage effluent qualities actually mean. What may not be widely known is classification of “B plus” to “A plus” were established by negotiation essentially behind closed doors during the 1999 – 2000 ADEQ rule revision period. And, I can assure you that neither your voice nor mine was given honest consideration nor our legitimate concerns answered. This “game” is rigged, the playing field is not level nor do the “stakeholders” attend with equal stature or standing.

Irrespective of effluent quality designation the current existing wastewater treatment plant serving the City of Sedona does not have the ability to deal with pesticides, common personal hygiene products or pharmaceuticals (which given the age of Sedona’s population) might cause you to raise your eyebrow just a bit.

But, Sedona is NOT alone as there is to the best of my knowledge and research no one single currently operating sewage treatment plant operating in Arizona or for that matter anywhere in the USA which will “treat” the above referenced products. They pass, in some cases undiluted through the system and are delivered in tact to “mother-nature” to deal with.

Currently much of the sewage effluent from the Sedona sewage facility is sprayed into the air allowed to evaporate, which some could legitimately say is a waste. But, it is, given the fact WE don’t have a clue of what levels of residuals are SAFE to be put back into our ground to become at some point part of aquifer from which others or us, might at some point utilize as our source of drinking water.

That Sedona might choose a different form of sewage effluent disposal is a discussion worthy of consideration … BUT … Don’t get caught up in the ADEQ sewage effluent “branding” game … it’s all a sham …