CHINO VALLEY - After a year of negotiations, the Chino Valley Town Council on Thursday approved a conditional use permit for the City of Prescott to install arsenic treatment equipment for two of its main wells within town limits.
With the council's 6-1 vote, one in which Vice Mayor Joel Baker cast the lone dissenting response, Prescott will put in the equipment and an 8-foot-high block wall along the south side of its 43-acre site at 251 N. Highway 89.
The site - which houses well Nos. 1 and 2, a 5-million gallon water storage tank, a booster station, and other associated electrical and mechanical piping equipment - serves as Prescott's main water production complex.
It stands next to Chino Valley High School on the east side of 89, about 200 feet south of East Road 1 North.
Layne Christensen, Inc. - the contractor installing the treatment equipment for Prescott - will not make changes to well No. 2, although the equipment adjacent to well No. 1 will clean the water from No. 2.
The contractor will reduce the arsenic content in Prescott's wells to the Environmental Protection Agency's current standard for drinking water, which is at or less than 10 parts per billion, by using iron and low-concentration bleach.
"You are going to be treating arsenic at a well site next to the high school," Baker said. "I can't put my vote on a motion that places those students at the high school at risk, even though I understand the mandate Prescott is under."
City of Prescott utilities director Jim Ciaffoni said the public health risk is low because the chemicals are "fairly benign."
"There is no potential for pressurized liquid or gas exploding, or releasing toxic fumes into the atmosphere," he said.
Chino Valley Town Engineer Ron Grittman agreed, saying, "We have reviewed these plans with the City of Prescott, and we're quite happy with them."
Prescott will install interim arsenic treatment equipment in an 80-foot by 80-foot complex next to the existing water storage tank near well No. 1.
This equipment will serve both well sites and include three rectangular steel treatment containers and a 16-foot-high cylindrical steel tank 20 feet in diameter.
The system will take the water directly from the wells to the storage tank and filter it with iron and bleach to remove the arsenic, which will come to rest in a storage tank.
Every three weeks, Ciaffoni said, a transport truck will remove the arsenic sludge from the tank and take it to an Arizona Department of Environmental Quality-approved disposal site.
In addition, every three weeks, a Layne Christensen subcontractor will fill the well site's containers with iron and bleach.
To avoid making chemical deliveries during peak school hours, Mayor Karen Fann and the council requested Ciaffoni ask Layne Christensen to schedule the drop-offs either early in the morning or in the mid-afternoon.
"We can sure try," Ciaffoni said.
Contact the reporter at dcook@prescottaz.com
Reader Comments
Posted: Monday, April 14, 2008
Article comment by:
BradleyR434
Took long enough! Now that the limits of arsenic are within the proper guidelines will the town(s) aid the heart disease, cancer and developmental disabled victims who got that way from drinking this toxic water that was pumped to the citizens knowling?
Bradley
