The city’s first attempt at drilling a new well was unsuccessful, and drilling new ones will be expensive, said Noe Negrete, Santa Fe Springs’ public works director.
They include drilling a new well near the San Gabriel River away from the 4.2-mile contaminated plume around the former property of Omega Chemical Corp. The city could also try to fix another well that was drilled but produced water with odors and high temperatures.
Another solution was turning to Downey or Whittier to buy water.
The treatment itself probably won’t start for several years, and the timeline for the total clean up remains uncertain, Praskins said.
Because of the Omega plume, there are only a few areas where Santa Fe Springs can drill for water, Negrete said.
“But on day three we started getting hydrogen sulfied odors and then started noticing (brown) staining on the surface,” Beach said.
Water was produced over the next nine months, but the problem remained.