PROJECT DESCRIPTION

The Bayside Groundwater Project is proposed by the East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) as one of many solutions to protecting San Leandro, San Lorenzo, and parts of Oakland from droughts. While the concept of drought mitigation is a noble cause, it is critically important that all citizens be aware of whether or not the project itself is sound. The Heron Bay Task Force is a group of concerned residents who have united together to stand opposed to the Bayside Groundwater Project due to the critical issues which negatively impact the surrounding residential communities and environment.

What The Project Proposes To Do

Injection Process

Take clean drinking water, add chlorines, and inject up to 15 million gallons daily down into deep underground aquifers that are beneath the homes of San Leandro and San Lorenzo residents.  The process is described below.  Click on the following picture to visualize the process.

1. The water is first cleaned and treated at an existing treatment facility to become high quality drinking water.
2. Rather than sending this clean drinking water to your home, the water is piped to the Bayside Project area, next to the Ora Loma Sewage Treatment Plant.
3. The Bayside Project area is located above known contaminants (waste oils, gasoline products, MTBE, etc.) in the shallow aquifer.  EBMUD has no plans to remove these contaminants that may pollute your drinking water.
4. 15 million gallons daily will be injected into the ground through deep wells; this daily volume is equivalent to a swimming pool the size of a football field over 40 feet deep.  (Extraction process is described below.)
5. The deep aquifers are approximately 700 feet underneath the ground surface.
6. Your drinking water stored in the deep aquifers may become contaminated from the contaminated shallow aquifers. EBMUD recognizes that these contaminants may pollute the Bayside water supply through migration to deeper zones through improperly abandoned wells, a potential contamination source as confirmed by EBMUD's own findings during testing of the contaminated deep aquifer near the Oakland Coliseum (per EBMUD's study titled "Regional Hydrogeologic Investigation South East Bay Plain").

Extraction Process

Up to 30 million gallons daily will be pumped from beneath the homes of San Leandro and San Lorenzo residents (see number 4 in the picture above).  Extracted waters will be processed through aeration towers that will blow radon and chloroform, known cancer causing substances, into the air adjacent to the San Leandro and San Lorenzo residential communities.

• Up to 30 million gallons daily volume will be pumped from the ground through deep wells; this daily volume is equivalent to a swimming pool the size of a football field over 80 feet deep.
• Four aeration towers are proposed (see number 7 in the picture above).  These aeration towers will only transfer the cancer causing pollutants from the water to the air (large fans in the aeration towers blow air through the water).  The pollutants are not neutralized or cleansed by the aeration towers; the pollutants are just dumped onto the San Leandro and San Lorenzo residents to breathe.
• EBMUD’s Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) states that up to 3,700 pounds of chloroform will be emitted annually, over 100 times more than the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's toxic trigger level of 36 pounds annually.
• EBMUD omitted a lifetime chloroform cancer risk study from the original DEIR.  This study confirms the increased cancer risks that the nearby residents will be exposed to.  This study was only shared with the public (after values were changed by EBMUD) once nearby residents expressed outrage at a 2001 public comment meeting that the cancer risk study was omitted by EBMUD.

Project Location

Click here to see the location of the Bayside Groundwater Project.

PROJECT ISSUES/NEGATIVE IMPACTS

Property Damage

• Subsidence (Ground-sinking)
  • The massive volumes of water (up to 30 million gallons daily) pumped from the deep aquifers may cause the ground to sink beneath the residential and business communities of San Leandro and San Lorenzo.
  • An independent California Registered Professional Engineer investigated the Bayside Project and confirmed that subsidence, caused by EBMUD wells, “may cause major and irreparable damage to the homes located within the [Bayside] Project”.
  • The United States Geological Survey (USGS) confirms that subsidence can 1) damage private and public buildings, 2) change elevations and slopes of streams, canals, and drains, and 3) damage bridges, roads, railroads, storm drains, sanitary sewers, and levees.¹
  • The USGS confirms that subsidence can cause tides to move into low lying coastal areas that were once above high tide levels.¹  The Heron Bay Community and much of San Leandro and San Lorenzo lie only a few feet above sea level and may be subjected to flooding caused by the Bayside Project’s subsidence.
  • The USGS confirms that subsidence can be stopped by switching to surface water supplies (rather than pumping from the ground).¹  EBMUD does have surface water drought supplies available, such as the Freeport Project.  Click here to learn about the Freeport Project which will fully meet EBMUD's drought needs.
• Flowing Abandoned Wells
  • The Regional Water Quality Control Board reports that “in the range of 15,000 wells were drilled in the East Bay Plain between 1860 and 1950... many were 200-500 feet deep with the deepest reaching 1000 feet below the ground surface...²  Most of these wells have been abandoned but were not properly destroyed."
  • The USGS also claims that within the Rodgers well field (former name of Bayside Project Area), there are at least 12 to 15 abandoned wells that may extend down to the deep aquifer.³
  • EBMUD recognizes that their process of injecting water into the ground may cause these abandoned wells to flow or bubble-up to the ground surface.  These flowing wells may carry the known contaminants in the shallow aquifer to the ground surface, exposing residents to the hazardous contaminants (waste oils, gasoline products, MTBE, etc).  On page 3.8-24 of the Bayside DEIR, EBMUD states that “these [abandoned] wells may remain flowing until identified and modified.”
  • These flowing abandoned wells may flood and damage homes and businesses.

Water Quality

• San Leandro, San Lorenzo, and EBMUD customers south of High Street in Oakland will receive a lower quality of drinking water than what they currently receive now from the Sierra snowpack (currently stored in surface reservoirs, e.g., lakes).
• The Bayside groundwater will contain higher levels of arsenic and radon than other EBMUD sources (EBMUD DEIR, Table 3.10-1).
• The Bayside groundwater has the potential to become polluted from the confirmed contaminants (MTBE’s and other gasoline components) in the shallow ground water through abandoned wells.  Click here to see reported hazardous material releases within 1 mile of the Bayside Project area (EBMUD DEIR, Figure 3.4-1).
• The Regional Water Quality Control Board reports that "some of these [abandoned] wells may pose a current threat to the East Bay Plain because they provide a potential vertical pathway for contamination to migrate into the deeper zones."²
• EBMUD did not disclose in the Bayside DEIR that the South East Bay Plain Ground Water Basin Deep Aquifer (same aquifer as the Bayside deep aquifer) has already tested positive for contamination only 6 miles from the Bayside Project. EBMUD’s own study titled “Regional Hydrogeologic Investigation South East Bay Plain” records this contamination of the deep aquifer and states that the contamination may have migrated to the deeper zones through improperly abandoned wells.

Health (Air Quality)

• EBMUD proposes to transfer the pollutants in the ground water (chloroform, radon, etc.) into the air using a process called aeration, using aeration towers.
• The aeration towers are surrounded by residential communities, including elementary schools and high schools.
• The aeration towers will emit up to 3,700 pounds per year of chloroform (cancer causing pollutant) into the air, which would make the Bayside Project the highest toxic chloroform emissions facility in all of the Bay Area (per the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's Toxic Air Contaminants 2000 Annual Report; the current highest level is 2,500 pounds per year).  Note that the Bay Area Air Quality Management District's toxic trigger level is at 36 pounds annually.
• Pollutants will be blown into nearby communities, schools, and businesses, who will then have increased risks of developing cancer.
• EBMUD omitted a lifetime chloroform cancer risk study from the original DEIR.  This study confirms the increased cancer risks that the nearby residents will be exposed to.  This study was only shared with the public (after values were changed by EBMUD) once nearby residents expressed outrage at a 2001 public comment meeting that the cancer risk study was omitted by EBMUD.  Note that EBMUD's study still does not reflect the toxic effects of the EBMUD sites closest to residential neighborhoods and schools.  Click here to see the chloroform cancer risk contours of the EBMUD aeration towers and their impact on homes and schools near the Bayside Project.  Click here to see the Heron Bay Task Force's public comment letter that further describes this cancer risk study including documentation of EBMUD's altering of the cancer risk values during the DEIR public review/comment period.

YOU CAN HELP

To learn more about what you can do to help stop the Bayside Groundwater Project, please click here.

Footnotes

1. "Land Subsidence from Groundwater Pumping," USGS
2. "East Bay Plain Groundwater Basin Beneficial Use Evaluation Report," San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board
3. "Source, Movement, and Age of Groundwater in the San Leandro and San Lorenzo Alluvial Cones of the East Bay Plain Groundwater System," USGS