Retention basin relocated to prevent water pollution.
At its December 12 meeting, the Lake Arrowhead Dam Commission, known as CSA 70-D-1, heard of progress in completion of its retention basin relocation project from San Bernardino County Special Districts Department Division Manager of Operations Reese Troublefield.
“The walls are in on the culvert on the west side, some of the concrete channeling is done, the grading on the upper pad of the parking lot is level grade,” Troublefield shared, advising the anticipated completion date was the end of January.
According to documents obtained by The Alpenhorn News, on or about 1997, San Bernardino County Department of Public Health Division of Environmental Health Services Local Enforcement Agency (LEA) recommended Papoose Lake Disposal Site for inspection to the then State of California Integrated Waste Management Board (CIWMB), now known as CALRecycle.
A December 5, 2001, priority list of Closed, Illegal and Abandoned Disposal Sites included Papoose Lake Disposal Site as a disposal site referred or projected in the near future for solid waste program cleanup.
In an interview with The Alpenhorn News, San Bernardino County Special Districts Department (SDD) Senior Project Manager Greg Bacon, Sr. explained, “The site was an old unclassified landfill, mainly consisting of green waste and some household trash ‘unofficial’ disposal site many years ago,” estimating the disposal site was created in the 1970’s.
“In the early 2000’s an interest of developing the site for public park purposes and later potential other local uses [sic], the landfill was required to be addressed,” Bacon shared, explaining SDD “conducted an extensive landfill classification and boundary survey” overseen by CALRecycle that “identified that the decomposed materials were not hazardous, but there was some indication of Methane gas potential” due to decomposing green wastes.
In a Final Site Investigation Report on the Papoose Lake Disposal Site, released April 2002 by CIWMB, the report made five recommendations to “bring the site into compliance with state minimum standards and protect public health and safety,” with one of them being “reconfigure the drainage pattern on the property to remove the current retention basin from directly above the landfill.” “Once we began the planning and subsequent construction process of McKay Park, that triggered the requirement to re-locate the basin,” Bacon explained with the relocation designed and approved by CLARecycle and LEA, “to address all of the site’s drainage and runoff concerns, along with maintaining existing downstream drainage.” “The main reason water should not be allowed to sit and potentially permeate through a landfill is to avoid possible groundwater contamination,” Bacon voiced, explaining, “By siting the new sediment basin away from the landfill, this protects the groundwater and any downstream waters.” “The total budget for the project to include engineering, construction and project management is about $600,000,” Bacon revealed, confirming, “The construction contract was issued to Altmeyer Inc., of Cedar Glen, on April 19, 2016, for $419,378.” CIWMB recommended “the waste in the fill area be left in place, and any future development of the site be limited to those areas not underlain with waste or artificial fill,” with SDD monitoring and maintaining the site to “prevent public exposure to the waste and to minimize the risk to public health, safety and the environment.” According to documents obtained by The Alpenhorn News, soil testing at the site found lead in one sample exceeding the Total Threshold Limit Concentrations and another sample exceeding the Soluble Threshold Limit Concentrations set by the State of California as well as other metals and the presence of methane gas.