| At a public
hearing today to consider expansion of SaddleBrooke by nearly 4,000 dwellings,
representatives of Robson Communities distributed a memorandum from
the engineering firm of Dames & Moore claiming that there is a "zero"
possibility that contaminants found in the SaddleBrooke water supply originated
from a radioactive/toxic waste landfill that lies over the aquifer supplying
SaddleBrooke with their drinking water.
In 1999, Robson communities contracted
the firm of Dames & Moore to produce a report assessing the threat
of Page-Trowbridge to the local water supply.
A representative of Dames &
Moore is on record as guaranteeing that
"contaminants will never hit the Oracle drinking water".
The
guarantee was made August 17th, several years after contaminants
had already been detected in the Oracle and SaddleBrooke water supply,
and three months after toluene had already been detected in water samples
taken from the U of A the montioring wells at Page-Trowbridge.
While
U of A officials discounted the toluene detection as "an anomaly", they
have yet to explain the origin of Bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, detected
in samples taken from the Page-Trowbridge monitoring wells August 23rd. |
Dames & Moore have not yet defined specifics of their guarantee.
At the hearing today, James Polus, General Manager of the Robson-owned
Lago del Oro Water Company, offered a possible explanation for the recent
finding of ethybenzene in the SaddleBrooke water supply. Polus conjectured
that the ethybenzene detection could have been caused by a person handling
the sample who "might have recently filled his vehicle with gas, not washed
his hands, and contaminated the test bottle."
Another explanation offered by Polus is that the laboratory that analyzed
the sample made an error of some sort.
Polus did not offer possible explanations for the source of the dichloromethane
detected in the Oracle water supply in 1997, the detection of Bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate
found in water samples from the Page-Trowbridge monitoring wells in August,
nor did he attempt to explain the toluene detected at the Page-Trowbridge
montitoring wells in May.
The
Dames & Moore memo did not offer any explanations for the source of
the dichloromethane detected in the Oracle water supply in 1997, the detection
of Bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate found in water samples from the Page-Trowbridge
monitoring wells in August, nor did the memo attempt to explain the toluene
detected at the Page-Trowbridge montitoring wells in May. |
