Rare ‘toxic cocktail’ from Camp Fire is poisoning Paradise water. It could cost $300 million to fix.
Weeks after the
Water officials say they believe the extreme heat of the firestorm created a "toxic cocktail" of gases in burning homes that got sucked into the water pipes when the system depressurized from use by residents and firefighters.
Despite a long history of destructive wildfires sweeping through
"It is jaw dropping," said
The water contamination represents yet another unexpected and costly headache for
Experts who have rushed in to assess the problem say the water district may be able to clean pipes to some homes later this year, but it will take two years and up to
The health hazard is real, they say. Benzene is both a natural and human-made compound used as a building block for industrial products such as plastic, lubricants, rubber, detergent and pesticide. It also is found in crude oil, gasoline and cigarette smoke.
It has been connected to various physical ailments, according to federal warnings, including skin and eye irritation, and vomiting from short-term exposure. Long-term exposure has been linked to anemia and leukemia.
One noted water systems engineer said solving the benzene-contamination problem is the most scientifically complex task he has ever seen. The contamination is both in the water, moving around, and in the pores of some pipes.
"You have to be a detective to figure out what is going on," said environmental engineer
As climate change makes wildfires bigger and hotter, and as more houses are built in fire zones, water contamination could happen again, some say.
'Holy crap, we need help'
For now, the vast majority of
Water officials have issued them a warning: Do not drink tap water. Do not cook with it. Do not brush your teeth with it or bathe in it. If you shower, use warm water, not hot, and make it quick.
The agency has set up a water distribution center in a local parking lot, giving cases of free bottled water daily to residents.
The task of dealing with the most of contamination falls to a small century-old water company called the
Water district chief Kevin Phillips said he and his board knew immediately that they could not handle the problem on their own. His initial reaction when the first water samples came in was blunt: "Holy crap. We need help."
The irrigation district has called on other water agencies, state water experts, university scientists, lab chemists and the federal government for help.
"We are very good at delivering clean water, but we are not equipped to handle a situation of this magnitude," Phillips said.
Phillips himself was the agency's budget officer just a few months ago. He found himself in charge when the previous director quit and left town after the
Thirty of the agency's 36 employees lost their homes to the fire, Phillips said. Nine have quit.
Despite the water issues, the town of
Hundreds of workers are on the hillside daily carting fire debris away and preparing lots for new houses. The first handful of residents have secured permits in recent weeks to rebuild their houses.
"We're open for business, and water will not preclude you from getting a building permit and getting back in your home," said
Some residents are upset with what they believe is the water district's slow pace. "If I was your boss, you'd be walking down the road," one angry resident said at a recent community meeting.
Another lamented, "Nobody in
Forensics on the hillside
First, district officials say, they have to determine the extent of the contamination.
Each day, crews fan out to about two dozen home sites where they dig up and inspect water meters for damage, check the condition of the service line, and note whether the building is burned or not.
A technician in latex gloves then fills two four-inch vials with water from the line, places them on ice in her truck and drives them at day's end to a lab in
The average benzene level reading has been 31 parts per billion, Phillips said recently. The highest reading was 923 ppb as of a few weeks ago. That's far higher than the
The testing process has been fraught with uncertainty though. Officials initially thought they should let water sit for 72 hours before testing, allowing benzene to leach out of the pores of the pipe. But some tests have shown higher levels of benzene after 24 hours than after 72.
"The more we tested, the more we had to go back to the drawing board," Phillips said. "What we assumed to be the case turned out not to be. We are just kind of boggled by that."
It happened in
"We were never able to find any (water district) that experienced the same thing,"
Water officials say it is possible, though, that fires have contaminated urban drinking water in the past, but that those instances went undetected due to lack of testing.
Phillips of
The federal
How did it get in the pipes?
It's not a given that benzene will show up in a water system after a major wildfire. No benzene was found in tests in Redding after the Carr Fire destroyed whole neighborhoods last summer, state water officials said.
So, how did it get into the pipes under
Local and state officials have a theory, based on the fact that benzene can be formed from high-intensity burning.
On the morning of the fire, residents and firefighters turned on hoses and tapped fire hydrants, drawing water heavily from the system, and causing some pipes to empty, likely creating a vacuum. That vacuum may have sucked toxic air in some burning houses into the system.
That may explain why benzene has been found in tests at various spots around the city, rather than from one source.
Melted plastic meters and plastic pipes also may have introduced benzene and other volatile organic compounds into the system, local and state water officials say.
"It's a whole toxic cocktail of organic contaminants," said
But those are just theories, Newton of the state water board said. "We don't have a definite answer."
Representatives from two plastic pipe industry groups challenged
"We don't know where this theory comes from. We'd like to see the evidence,"
Replace the entire system?
Initially,
That would be a
But the
It plans to ask the state for a
The
Phillips said his agency's plan is to focus first on replacing contaminated pipes that run to and between still-standing homes, not burned properties. That plan should speed the process of bringing clean tap water to the first homes later this year.
The agency will shut off contaminated lines that go to burned home sites. If and when people rebuild on those sites, the agency will test for benzene and replace those lines as needed, he said.
The early estimate for the work ranges broadly, from
A debate over testing
The newness of the problem has led to disagreements over how far the district should go in testing.
Environmental engineer Whelton of
Whelton, whose Purdue team is serving in an advisory capacity, is pushing the state to authorize more sophisticated testing, including multiple tests at spots and checks for a broader array of volatile organic compounds. He recently called the governor's office to push his point.
"The data being used for public health and safety decisions must be credible and reproducible," he wrote in an email to the state. "If taxpayer dollars (are) not resulting in reproducible data, something is wrong."
State water board officials have pushed back. In an email to Whelton and other members of the ad hoc
Speaking to The Bee, Crenshaw acknowledged one area where more testing should be done. That's in the Paradise Pines community, up the hill from
That area is served by the
But
Crenshaw, who is assisting the Del Oro district, said crews have done about 100 tests in Paradise Pines so far, where 4,000 homes burned, and will do more. "We want a bigger sample size," he said. His prediction for burned home sites: "We are probably going to find more (benzene)."
The 'burn scar people'
Although fire destruction on the hillside was sweeping, an estimated 10 percent of homes survived, and many are now inhabited.
It's a group one resident calls the "burn scar people." They are living on bottled water and water tank deliveries.
Retirees Jim and
The Wilsons have placed 19 water containers in a row on the ground under the roof overhang. It's their rainwater collection system. Some are plastic buckets. Others are ice chests and still others are plastic storage containers.
To take a shower, Jim collects three buckets of water from the outside containers, warms the water in a portable kitchen counter-top heater, then pours it into a bucket in the bathtub.
He bought a small hose with a pump that pushes the water to a nozzle. He sprays himself quickly, soaps, then sprays gain.
"It's like we're camping, just indoors," he said.
"It's not for everyone," his wife said.
A few miles away, 84-year-old
Stein drives 15 minutes each week to the water distribution center and loads the trunk with bottles and stacks them in his garage. He and his wife disagree on the risk posed by their tap water. She opened the sink tap to show visitors how clear the water is.
"I could feel an oily substance before, but it's cleared up now," she said. "This is good water."
"Only it's got benzene in it," her husband retorted. "I won't even brush my teeth in that stuff."
Stein is thinking about buying a purifying system. Some of his friends have. But water officials have said that they do not know how well in-home filters protect residents if there is benzene in their taps.
The 'bells are ringing'
Stein and Wilson say they believe officials will succeed in eliminating the toxins from the water system. But the fix planned by water officials leaves out one major component that may prove problematic for years to come.
State and local water officials say their jurisdiction -- and their legal responsibility -- goes only as far the water meters at the edge of each property. The service lines from the meters into homes and businesses are privately owned. More of those lines are likely to be contaminated because they connect to burned structures.
In a February letter to
He recommended that all property owners with destroyed buildings have their water service line replaced from the meter to the house when they rebuild. They likely will have to pay for that themselves at a cost of several thousand dollars each.
Some residents have taken water samples in for testing. But testers and water officials warn samples may be unreliable unless they're taken according to protocols used by credentialed testing labs.
Phillips of the
"We don't want to jump off the cliff and six months later say, 'Oh, we shouldn't have gone down this path.' "
Water and wildfire experts say
One of those is
"This is really just the beginning here," Webster said. "The fires in
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