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CENTRAL VALLE REGIONAL WATER QUALIT" CONTROL BOARD DOSP cnoN REPORT: 1 December 1989 DISCHARGER: SMS Briners, Inc. LOCATION 5 COUNTY: 10 miles east of Stockton at 17750 E. Highway 4, San Joaquin County CONTACT(S): Mr. Arnold Sousa, owner INSPECTION DATE: 17 October 1989 INSPECTED BY: Patricia Leary and David Brent Eli, c • ,;_ , � ACCOMPANIED BY: Arnold Sousa DEC 12 M.9 ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH OBSERVATIONS AND COMMENTS: PER MIT/SERVICES SMS Briners is a vegetable brining facility currently regulated under Waste Discharge Requirements Order No. 79-42. On 17 October 1989 I made an inspection of the site with David Brent to familiarize myself with the operation and the ongoing groundwater investigation and to assess compliance with their Waste Discharge Requirements and current regulations. We first met with Mr. Sousa, to be briefed on the facility improvements recently undertaken and planned to prevent further discharge of wastes to surface and ground waters. He said that three additional monitoring wells were installed in September 1989. He also reported that they had changed half of their salt handling to bulk loading to prevent spillage. They plan to plumb all the fiberglass brining tanks together to prevent further tank drainage from flowing on their asphalt pad. SMS also has a sampling program in place to determine if storm runoff carries contaminants to surface water. After our meeting we toured the facility. We began in the fiberglass tank area. Asphalt was laid under all the tanks, reportedly to collect and route tank drainage and storm runoff to the evaporation ponds. The asphalt did not appear to extend out from the tanks sufficiently, nor have a large enough berm to contain any significant spillage. Mr. Sousa said he was hoping that, once the tanks were plumbed to transport brine wastes through piping, that the pads could be graded to drain directly into the North Fork of Littlejohns Creek. I told him that the pad, with adequate berms, should be used as secondary containment. Discharge to the creek might be allowed only if analyses results showed the flows to be uncontaminated from his operations. I noted that all the roadways between the tank rows were unpaved. On one road I observed an uncovered, approximately one ton bin filled with salt, and some salt spillage on the ground. Mr. Sousa said the bulk loading, once fully implemented, would replace all the open bin usage.