County: Water contaminations not linked

By: GIG CONAUGHTON - Staff Writer | Wednesday, August 16, 2006 2:11 AM PDT ∞

SAN DIEGO COUNTY ---- County health officials said Tuesday a recent rash of water contamination cases were just coincidence and not an indication of a rampant, growing problem.

Over the last five weeks, county health officials have issued seven separate warnings to residents around San Diego County not to drink their water without boiling it because it was tainted with bacteria.

By contrast, county records show that its environmental health department did not report any contamination finds in the summer of 2005.

Mark McPherson, chief of the land and water-quality division of the county's Department of Environmental Health said the contamination outbreaks were all discovered at well-water systems in outlying areas of the county.

Well systems in Warner Springs, Lakeside, Campo, Guatay and Descanso ---- affecting a school district, mobile-home park, small water operator and a jail, respectively ---- have each been shut down for a period of days to weeks over the last month and five days.

The city of San Diego also issued its own "boil water" order after a pipeline break created bacterial contamination of drinking water supplies in parts of North County, including Rancho Penasquitos, Rancho Bernardo, Carmel Mountain Ranch, Pomerado Park, Bernardo Heights, Bernardo Trails, Bernardo Oaks, Oaks North, and Lake Hodges.

McPherson said the high number of contamination warnings this summer were unusual. But he also said that county officials don't feel they were connected in any way, and that people should not get the idea that the combined outbreaks were an indication of a larger problem with groundwater supplies.

He said most of the contaminations occurred because the water systems were old and contained leaks that would allow contaminants inside, or because pipelines had been recently worked on and were not properly cleaned and sealed. McPherson said that could let in coliform ---- the type of bacteria found in soil and vegetation that testers use to show the possible presence of intestinal parasites and pathogens ---- which was found in the effected systems.

"We have had an uptick in the number," he said. "(But) it's just a coincidence."

Meanwhile, an official for the region's main water supplier said very few of San Diego County's water users rely on well water or other groundwater systems. San Diego County Water Authority spokesman John Liarakos said because people generally rely upon "imported" water in the county, the spate of well-water problems probably wouldn't have widespread implications even if they were connected.

San Diego County generally does not have the proper type of porous subsurface rock that naturally stores rainwater and runoff ---- the type of water that can be pumped from wells into drinking water glasses.

In addition, the county gets so little rainfall each year that between 70 percent and 95 percent of all the water that county residents use each year is pumped through pipelines from the Colorado River and Northern California's massive State Water Project, which delivers Northern California snowmelt and rainfall to Southern California.

McPherson, meanwhile, said the rash of recent contaminations ---- while unusually large ---- could seem even larger because the county did not always send out press release alerts to the general news media when small contaminations occurred.

He said the county recently reversed that policy because it wanted to make sure it alerted people who may have been traveling through those areas.

-- Contact staff writer Gig Conaughton at (760) 739-6696 or gconaughton@nctimes.com.