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Marley Cooling Tower Company Groundwater Treatment System San Joaquin County Inspection Report J February 7, 2003 9/21/02 * Mr. Lieb sent an email giving an update of the situation and attached the MCTC letter dated 9/20 addressed to DFG. The letter gave details of the system upset and fish kill incident. The letter also indicated that 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: 9/22/02 9/23/02 • to have a service technician on site as soon as possible to assess the pH meter condition; • to conduct full engineering review of the treatment system operations; to install additional pH probe in effluent line, after the pH adjustment point in the process, as an additional precaution. 8:15 am - * Mr. Lieb, Warden Oldfather, Ramos Environmental and Vic (MCTC cleanup 1:15 pm contractor) were onsite to clean up the dead fish. * Fish kill cleanup performed - 8:15 am to 1:00 pm by a thirteen man crew. * The dead fish were placed in fifteen (15) 55 -gallon steel drums with an estimated total weight of 7,500 lbs and transported for offsite disposal at the Sacramento County Landfill as non -hazardous waste. The dead fish were removed from the steel drums and put in plastic bags at the time of disposal. MCTC informed us of the disposal site after the fish were disposed. * Ramos Environmental assessed the access to the site and equipment needed to clean the discharge pipeline, and discussed the cleanup plans with Warden Oldfather. 12:00 pm * JSR and SRT arrived at the MCTC facility. * JSR and SRT discussed the treatment plant operation, and the specific sequence of events that caused the spill with Mr. Lieb and Mr. Lingo. The pH meter that failed was serviced and calibrated in June 2002. The meters (pH and hexavalent chromium) are serviced approximately every six months. Mr. Lieb said that they thought the discharge occurred sometime between 10 pm on 9/16/02 and 7 am on 9/17/02, when it was discovered. He said that the discharge pump pumps at approximately 4 gallons per minute. They are going to do some additional study to try and figure out exactly how much caustic was released. JSR and SRT were interviewed by Channel 13 news for a few minutes. The news crew also accompanied us to the outfall area to photograph us taking a pH measurement. After the news crew left, JSR and SRT returned to MCTC. Mr. Lieb and Mr. Lingo then accompanied JSR and SRT back to the canal, and the NPDES sampling points. JSR and SRT collected field pH measurements at eight points in the canal, and collected one sample of the white precipitate from the outfall pipeline for laboratory analysis. The cleanup of the pipeline, outfall structure, and soil and vegetation was delayed by the cleanup contractor (Ramos) to the next day so that the proper equipment could be obtained. Sample Location and pH results were as follows 12 Approved: