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Marley Cooling Tower Company Groundwater Treatment System San Joaquin County Inspection Report J February 7, 2003 6:45 pm * David Lieb left Sudhakar Talanki (SRT), the Board's project manager for this site, a voicemail message that an upset had occurred at the groundwater treatment system. He said that a pH sensor/meter failed, causing a caustic pump to keep running, causing a fish kill. 9/20/02 Sometime in * Warden Oldfather called Pat Leary of the RWQCB and left a message telling the am her of the spill. Ms. Leary was out in the field in the morning. It was also SRT's regularly scheduled day off, so he did not check his messages either. 1:30 pm * Pat Leary called John Russell (JSR) to let him know of the spill. 2:00 pm * JSR called SRT at home about the spill. 2:15 pm * SRT spoke to David Lieb at MCTC concerning the spill. Mr. Lieb said the incident at the treatment plant happened on Monday late night (9/16) or early Tuesday morning (9/17). Mr Lieb said that he did not become aware of the fish kill until Thursday (9/19) afternoon when DFG came on site and informed him of the fish kill in the canal. SRT asked Mr. Lieb to send him an email with a preliminary description regarding the incident, and not to restart the system till further notification. Mr. Lieb said the treatment system was already shut down and will not be restarted `until further notice". 2:30 pm * SRT updated JSR about conversation with Mr. Lieb. * JSR and Antonia Vorster (AKJV) made plans to visit the site later in the afternoon. 4:30 pm * JSR and AKJV arrived at the MCTC site. Met David Lieb and Jim Lingo (MCTC treatment system operator), and Lori Oldfather and Mike Healy of the DFG on the site. Mr. Lieb gave everyone a copy of the raw data from the latest toxicity testing, a copy of the treatment plant operations log, and the initial letter report on the incident (attached). Mr. Lieb indicated that they (MCTC staff) had already begun planning modifications to the treatment system to install preventative measures to help ensure that this does not happen again. The planned measures included: • having a service technician on site as soon as possible to assess the pH meter condition; • conducting a full engineering review of the treatment system operations; • installing an additional pH probe in effluent line, after the pH adjustment point in the process, as an additional precaution. * After a brief discussion of the incident, the parties drove to the canal discharge/outfall location to view the fish kill and the receiving water. * Marley contractor (Joe Ormande/Ramos Environmental) met MCTC staff at the outfall. * Warden Oldfather stressed that the most important issues were to stop the cause of the condition, which was already done since the discharge was shut down, and to clean up the dead fish in the canal as she was afraid of problems with birds eating the dead fish. Warden Oldfather also wanted the white precipitate that was present in the effluent pipeline, on the concrete outfall structure, and on the vegetation beneath the outfall removed prior to the system 10 Approved: