John Stephens, Napa Group Chair
The earth mourns and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the earth. The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants: for they have transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, broken the everlasting covenant. Isaiah 24:4
The Miliken-Sarco-Tolocay water basin is one of five (now thought to be six) water basins in Napa County. The basin stretches northward from the Coombsville area, just east of the City of Napa, southward to Napa State Hospital. Twenty-seven creeks flow down the hills to recharge the source of many people's well water. At the foot of the slopes, each creek flows over permeable strata for which feeds the water basin while the rest of the journey an impermeable layer keeps the surface water from percolating into the lower water bearing layers.
I work at the hospital. During the first week in March I smelled fumes coming out of the storm catch basin in back of one of the buildings. My supervisor told me that some workers had spilled some diesel in the old unused boiler plant and the odor had drifted up the drain to the outside. Then I took off for a month to care for my wife who had surgery. When I returned I learned Plant Operations had been trying to locate a diesel leak in the storm drain system.
The Hospital has an official policy posted on every bulletin board, nick named the "Rainbow Sheets" because of their many colors, requiring the immediate notification to the appropriate authorities in case of a hazardous waste spill. In spite of at least one worker warning their superiors that it needed to be reported to the authorities some higher up kept it quiet. I became suspicious when a plumber was told to "look inconspicuous" while jetting out the storm drain with powerful sprays of water. At the discharge end of the storm drain sandbags were stacked up in a three and half-foot high jury-rigged wall to create a small pool with white absorbent pads on the water and some placed below in the run off area. Water was still escaping through the bags and into the Tolocay Creek drainage and smelling to high heaven. (You can see it still from Denny's sidewalk looking south as of mid-May.) When I realized the other agencies were not called and not likely to be any time in the future, I reported it to the County Environmental Health Department.
If this ongoing spill was higher up in the watershed, people's wells would be partially recharged by this creek, and their water supply would be contaminated. As it is, this spill is closer to the river, the only critters immediately affected are the fish (and wildlife) and the people who eat them. I've seen kids fishing in the Napa River for those same fish and proudly taking home their catch for the family to eat. Health problems caused by environmental insults can typically take decades before manifesting themselves as cancers or neurological disorders. I was shocked by the apparent disregard for public health and safety.
The C& H sugar refinery was recently fined for discharging sewage into Carquinez Straits and deliberately falsifying records. The plant official received three years court probation. It seems every organization, company, and government entity's philosophy is to maintain damage control, to publicly minimize mistakes, instead of being up front and admitting and immediately correcting problems. The hospital case has been referred to the DA for investigation and it may face a fine of up to $25,000 per day of violation, ordered to remove the contaminated soils along the drainage to Tolocay Creek and possible criminal charges. If environmental enforcement follows the usual pattern, however, the responsible official in this case will also likely to receive only the mildest of reprobation.