RIALTO - City officials are seeking $23 million in emergency funds from the state because of perchlorate contamination in the drinking water.

The contamination is not new nor has an emergency been officially declared, but Rialto has been battling the perchlorate for years.


It found its way into the groundwater from the past manufacturing at industrial facilities of military rockets, fireworks and other explosives.


On Aug. 29, members of the City Council met in Sacramento with a number of state officials, including Dan Dunmoyer, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's deputy chief of staff.


Dunmoyer suggested that Rialto look into declaring a state of emergency.


"It's the only way we can get emergency funds from the governor. We have to do it," said Councilman Ed Scott, concerning the possible declaration of a state of emergency.


Scott is a member of the council's perchlorate subcommittee.


The council will likely vote at its next meeting on whether to declare the emergency, he said.


Perchlorate, which could cause a number of health effects by interfering with the thyroid, has been flowing through Rialto from industrial sites on the city's north end.


It could cost hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up.


The contamination has generated more attention in Sacramento since last month, when a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge halted state hearings to determine if three companies - Pyro Spectaculars, Goodrich and Black & Decker - should have to clean some of the contamination.


The city laid out its funding request in a letter to Cindy Tuck, undersecretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency.


The city would use the money to stop the perchlorate from continuing to move through the Rialto Basin and contaminating more clean water.


Much of the money Rialto requested would also help the city better understand the extent of the contamination.


Rialto has developed plans that spell out what needs to be done in order to better understand the total cleanup cost and the extent of the contamination.


The city wants to use the state money to gather that information, Scott said.


Then Rialto could take out an insurance policy, and parties, such as the suspected polluters, would pay into the policy, to guarantee that the cleanup would be paid for.


"We are seeking an emergency cleanup while we urge the state to toughen its enforcement effort against the (potentially responsible parties)," reads the letter, signed by Scott and City Council member Winnie Hanson, the other member of the perchlorate subcommittee.


In another move that could provide Rialto with millions of dollars in cleanup money, the state Assembly last week amended legislation, which had already passed in the Senate, to provide about $50 million in remaining Proposition 84 money for drinking water cleanup.


The money set aside by the Assembly amendment should go to the poorest, most populated and most contaminated areas, said Alicia Trost, a spokeswoman for Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland.


Perata wrote the original bill.


"So Rialto of course is included in that group," Trost said.


Scott said he hopes Rialto can get $15 to $20 million of that money.


Both Assembly chambers were expected to vote on the legislation during an all-night session on Tuesday.


Contact writer Jason Pesick at (909) 386-3861 or via e-mail at jason.pesick@sbsun.com.


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BS Ranch Perspective:


I am wondering why they are still finding ways to fix a problem that is a Health Risk to the Public, Yet according to this report the people of Rialto has been Drinking the Contaminated Water the whole time, yet they are just now getting to a point where they are coming up with a Figure where it will cost them to clean it up? So I am at a loss here, the people of Rialto either is not Informed on this subject and they don't really know what they are drinking or what they have been drinking, over this time that the city has been fighting for a bundle of cash to clean up the mess.


The other part that is funny or fishy is that there is nobody named where the $23Million is coming from to help the people ? The other part that delivers some concern is that there might be a little bit of Conflict of Interest with the City Council Member being on the Board to make sure that the City Water Department gets a whole lot of money in his, I Mean, their pockets!! It is great that there is money that is Finally being named, for the city of Rialto.


It is weird when all the County Water Agencies, Namely West Valley Water District, which also serves a great deal of the Northern Homes and businesses in Rialto didn't have much trouble getting funding for their filtration systems that were needed to clean out the Perchlorate from the water that they had from the North End of Rialto, where they Serve, North of Baseline Ave.


Colton also was not mentioned in the Papers or their city council wasn't named in the news on Perchlorate, yet when the contamination was first mentioned Colton's water Wells were found to have Perchlorate in the wells! Perchlorate was funded and cleaned up, without any public needs regarding Colton's clean up of the Perchlorate. Fontana Water District also was fixed up and cleaned out as well! Fontana also had the Reverse Osmosis Filtration systems that were attached their wells, at the cost of approximately a $1 to $2Million a filtration system, and Fontana, has approximately six or seven lined up on Baseline alone. Yet they were not put in the News Papers, nor were they put in the News Papers with a huge story, I could be wrong and I might be, but I don't remember seeing one.


So for Rialto to be still fighting for monies that should have been paid in filtration equipment, tells me one thing that they wanted the money for something other then what it might have been intended for? (I pray that I am way off on my feelings here) But here it is!! I am starting to question the leadership as I have done in the past, but I feel that the $23,000,000.00 million is needed to pay back the bill that has been aqumilated by Owen in the work that his office has done in this matter.


The rest of the Money is needed to pay the people at the Airport with whom the city has a contract with to get them moved to San Bernardino Airport, and pay their rent for the next few years, (I am not sure on how many years that the city is requred to pay for their rent for their newly built hangers, paid for by the people that live in Rialto). Then they will use some of that money to also work with the Eviromental Protection Agency to get started on the clean up of the Perchlorate in the water supply on the closed down wells in the City of Rialto. They will also ask Target to get started on their portain of developing the area Linden ave @ Walnut Ave, Right where the Cellular Towers currently are and the main Hangers are, where Linden Meets Miro Way! Great huh, shopping at it greatest, not to mention that Rialto might even ask Target to assist them in building the roads connecting Linden Ave from the North end of through where the Airport used to be and then there will be some kind of Art Scholl Ave in Art's Honor, after all Art did an Awful lot to work on expanding Rialto Airport, he saw what it could bring to Rialto, But since there isn't a Visionary Like Art around anymore the Airport is not in the plans for Rialto. It's a shame that Art has past, becuase his vision was to have a larger airport, which many of the people of Rialto was following, but when Art Passed his idea's past with him, I am really sorry to say!! But then when Ed Scott was in there, he knew Art Schol's Dream with the expantion of the Airport, But they didn't put the right person in to run or espand the airport. Chino on the other hand is doing great, there expantion has turned a profit for their city!! Why not for the city of Rialto?? Has to do with Managment, nothing more!!


Now I hope that they don't Mess up their New Venture, which in some ways it seems that they are off to very slow start, and now they are stalling, the start of the closure of hte airport, and the sale of the property, or the moving of the people that rent at Rialto Airport. I imagine that is becuse the City of Rialto is Broke!! BROKE BECAUSE THEY HAVE BEEN CHASING OWENS MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR VENTURE(for Owen's not the City of Rialto), REFERENCE THE PERCHACHORATE CONTAMINATION OF THE GROUND WATER IN RIALTO!!


Now I really hope that I am wrong about Owen's and his Law Firm, and that the people that are on the City Council are really doing it to help the City of Rialto and they are not on the Council for any other. It has been in the past that there has been some underhanded deals that have come across that they are in their positions not for Rialto or the people that live in Rialto but the money that they can get their hands on in Rialto, and when a person talks to them they talk down and cut off and disrespectfully push away these people, sad to know that they do this.


When it was the fight between the Chief of Police or the Sheriff of the County of San Bernardino, they held their ground, and it made me wonder what did the County of San Bernardino have for them waiting for them, Candy of some kind was on their back pourch if they were to get the Sheriff to be the New Crime Ambasidor for the City of Rialto, with the Sheriff Assigning a new Capt. as a Chief. to Rialto. and then they would go there.


there would have been so much lost if the city council whould have allowed the county to have been the


I might be wrong I pray that I am wrong, but I am starting to have questions!! Especially for the amount that they are asking for. It is a good amount to start the rebuilding and change of an Airport to a new place to live.


BS Ranch!