City of Rialto Prepares Next Steps to Ensure Water for the Future

The City of Rialto has identified approximately $2 million in this year's budget to fund immediate steps to ensure a clean water supply for the future.

Steps include the cleanup of the perchlorate pollution and the identification of those who are responsible. According to Brad Baxter, director of public works, "The City of Rialto is prepared to take the lead to analyze the basins, identify the polluters and develop treatment strategies that will both stop the spread of the pollution and treat the source of the pollution."

During the past several weeks city officials, legal counsel and various other professionals have interviewed between 30 and 40 firms with specialties in the areas of hydrology, geology, chemistry, weapons destruction/manufacturing, civil engineering and mechanical engineering as well as funding experts and prior employees of defense related industries and contractors.

The City of Rialto's next steps will be to hire consultants to make sure the city builds a strong case against all of the potentially responsible parties, to complete a thorough analysis of the basins, and to develop treatment plans and pollution control strategies. The city also will document the past practices of all of the entities, including the Department of Defense, that potentially could have contributed to the pollution problem.

"The city's aggressive action has two purposes: first to address our immediate water crisis; second, to prevail in any legal action," Baxter said. "The stronger our case, the more likely the city will ultimately recover its costs. The city staff and council hope to set a national example of how a small community can not only preserve its greatest natural resource but how a little town can shape and change national policy."

Source: City of Rialto