News Coverage
Cities still have concerns about groundwater contamination by former McGregor plant
Published April 19, 2003
Area cities still have concerns about a chemical used to produce rockets iat a former weapons plant at McGregor.
Currently, the U.S. Navy has transferred nearly two-thirds of the more than 9,000 acres of the site to the city of McGregor.
Contractors continue to clean up byproducts from portions of the former Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant before turning the property over to McGregor for an industrial park. Bobby Fillyaw, president of the McGregor Economic Development Corp., said a deed for a 207-acre tract there was being processed for the city last week. That transfer would make bring the total to 6,000 acres that the Navy has returned to the city since Congress allowed the property transfer in 1996.
A smorgasbord of chemical compounds ranging from explosive residues and DDT to benzene was left at the plant over a period of more than 50 years. But cleanup of groundwater contaminated with perchlorate has been the major focus since it was first discovered in Harris Creek in 1998.
Varying amounts of the chemical have been found in streams off-site in the watersheds of the Bosque River, which feeds Lake Waco, and the Leon River that flows into Belton Lake. The plant site straddles the two river systems. But Navy contractors said they have sampled for four years at raw-water intakes, where water enters before being treated for drinking, in both lakes, finding no perchlorate. And although testing for the chemical at various stream locations off-site continues, the Navy has discontinued sampling at the intakes.
"We don't believe Belton Lake is being adversely affected by perchlorate. Neither is Lake Waco," said Alan Jacobs of EnSafe Inc., one of two Navy contractors on the McGregor project. He added sampling at the raw-water intakes was discontinued as a cost-savings measure since the chemical had not been detected there.
Representatives of cities who depend on both lakes for drinking water expressed concerns that the sampling stopped.
"I think it needs to be carefully monitored," said Waco Mayor Linda Ethridge. "I think this is a place where saving money now might cost more later by not being prudent and vigilant."
Ethridge added that despite the Navy's decision to discontinue monitoring, the city has a strong perchlorate monitoring program that will continue.
Temple City Manager Mark Watson also said a lack of sampling deprives those who use the lake water of a monitoring tool.
"I think we'll be acting blindly again if they take (sampling) away," he said.
Perchlorate was used in producing solid rocket motors that were once made at the former weapons plant. Not all of its health effects have not been identified, but it known to adversely affect metabolism and growth.
The national research organization Environmental Working Group published a report last year on perchlorate contamination that has been discovered in more than 40 states. Renee Sharp of the group's Oakland, Calif., office criticized the Navy's decision to stop sampling at lakes supplying water to almost a half-million Central Texans.
"It's dangerous to discontinue tests given the large number of people affected," she said.
The Navy contractors have employed different methods on the site to treat the contaminated groundwater. One method includes treating perchlorate by running water through ditches filled with rock, mushroom compost and wood chips that have been saturated with soybean oil.
Treated groundwater is released from storage tanks into an unnamed tributary of the Leon River. The Navy had been operating under a provisional order allowing discharge until the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality granted a permanent discharge permit last month.
Fillyaw, McGregor economic development group's president, said the discovery of perchlorate somewhat stalled the pace of the Navy turning over the property to the city.
"Before perchlorate was found, they were talking about having it all done this year," he said. "But after they found out about treatment systems and what it takes to remediate, it's been quicker than we first thought it would be."
He said six businesses have now moved to the site along with an 80,000-square-foot youth rodeo arena that is expected to bring in a total of 40,000 visitors within a year. He said total investments in businesses on the former plant site are about $25 million. Those firms employ about 275 people.
The most recent business to lease at the plant site is Space Exploration Technologies Inc. of El Segundo, Calif. The company is developing a family of rockets designed to lower the cost of access to space. The first rocket it is developing is a two-stage vehicle capable of placing a half-ton payload into low earth orbit, according to the company's Web site.
Fillyaw said the company will test fire its rocket at McGregor.
The monitoring and the study of perchlorate both at the former plant site and in the Bosque and Leon watersheds is likely to continue for some time. Almost $8 million has been allocated by Congress to study perchlorate within those river areas. The study being performed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Texas Tech University and the Brazos River Authority looks at how perchlorate travels in surface and groundwater as well as its effects on living organisms.
Brian Condike of the Corps office in Fort Worth, manager of the study project, said the research has found perchlorate in plants and animals. However, he said more work over the next year is needed to determine what their findings mean.
"This is just the beginning," he said. "We have yet to integrate into the data and figure out what it means to the environment."
Even though monitoring and treatment of perchlorate could continue for an unknown number of years, Fillyaw said the property could still be fully transferred to McGregor by late 2005 or early 2006.