ONTARIO >> Thank goodness summer is over.

That means the De Hoog family in south Ontario doesn’t have to take warm showers on very hot days.

Unlike most area residents, their water supply doesn’t get piped in from underground or pumped up from deep wells. It’s trucked in, stored in a tank that bakes in the sun and is then funneled through their houses.

Dairy farmers Martin and Liz De Hoog are among the approximately 37 households who are no longer using their wells to meet indoor water needs.

“I remember on a hot day, going in for a cold shower, and the water was warm,” Liz De Hoog said.

That’s because from the 1940s to the 1970s, companies stationed at what’s now called Ontario International Airport used a common industrial cleaning agent, trichloroethylene, commonly referred to as TCE, in an era when its toxic properties were not realized.

That compound, which has been linked to cancers, neurological disorders, birth defects and other medical problems, seeped into the groundwater and created what is dubbed “the South Archibald Plume.”

A toxic plume grows

The plume has become nearly 3 miles long and slightly more than a mile wide and is bounded by Grove Avenue on the west, Turner Avenue on the east, Kimball Avenue on the south and the 60 Freeway to the north.

At its regularly scheduled board meeting Wednesday, the Inland Empire Utilities Agency board will receive an update on the plume and the complex agreement to clean it up, as well as provide relief for families whose well water has been contaminated.

The 9 a.m. meeting is at 6075 Kimball Ave., Building A, Chino.

The plume was first detected in 1986, and in 2005, the parties involved were identified and a draft cleanup order was issued, Kurt Berchtold, executive director for the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, said.

Area residents don’t have access to the city’s piped-in, treated water, so they normally rely on well water. But since 2007, because of the toxic plume, they don’t use the well water.

Safe drinking water has been provided to the families in various forms, including arriving by truck. The trichlorethylene issue does not involve Ontario residents who are hooked up to the city’s water system.

The number of residents provided replacement water “grew periodically since that time, whenever additional data became available showing that wells were above the drinking water standard for trichlorethylene,” Berchtold said.

The California and federal government safe drinking water standard for this compound is five parts per billion. A part per billion is the equivalent of one drop of water in an Olympic-size swimming pool, experts say.

In some areas of the plume, the concentration of TCE is as many as 35 parts per billion — or more.

“At the heart of the plume, the highest concentrations range from 50 to 70 parts per billion,” Berchtold said.

Water trucked in

Initially, replacement water came in bottles. Later, the residents received 5,000-gallon, dark green water tanks which allowed for showering.

Jesus Delgado remembers growing up on the Hein Hettinga Dairy in Ontario and his mother always getting bottled water for drinking.

“It must have been some instinct she had … or maybe she knew something she wasn’t telling us,” he said, during a recent visit.

Now 36, the 1998 graduate of Ontario High School graduate manages the farm, which specializes in raising dairy cows.

“I remember relatives coming over (to the rural location) with bottles to take away” what they thought was fresh, wholesome well water, he said, adding they don’t do that anymore.

Those large, dark green heat-absorbing water tanks are on the grounds of the farm and on those of Delgado’s neighbors. So does his household still use store-bought bottled water?

“Absolutely,” Delgado said.

Still, Delgado said, when he’s working out in the field on a hot day, he will drink water from the well.

“I guess I should take some bottled water with me,” Delgado said.

The De Hoogs are leery of the quality of the water in the green tanks, which is provided by the city of Ontario,

And they, like the Delgados, buy bottled water at the store, Liz De Hoog said.

Temporary remedy

In late September, the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board announced a settlement agreement on the Ontario trichloroethylene groundwater plume.

“All parties moved beyond assigning blame for the plume and have developed an effective solution that is in the best interest of the public,” Berchtold said.

Along with the Inland Empire Utilities Agency, the agreement and cleanup order involves the cities of Ontario and Upland, Aerojet, Rocketdyne Inc., Boeing Co., General Electric Co., Lockheed Martin and the United States Department of Defense.

The companies and the Defense Department used the toxic solvent in the course of their operations at Ontario airport.

Upland and Ontario are involved in the settlement because they operated a wastewater treatment plant that was believed to have contributed to the trichloroethylene pollution, Gene Tanaka, an attorney representing Ontario, said in a telephone call after the agreement was announced.

Ontario has agreed to spend about $7 million, in part to build a temporary water pipeline to those affected residences, he said. A temporary system has a smaller pipe and typically travels farther from the main water line than a permanent system.

A permanent setup will be installed as more development comes to this primarily rural portion of Ontario, he added.

The share of Upland’s ownership in that plant was much smaller than Ontario’s, and therefore its contribution to the settlement is much smaller as well, Tanaka said.

Ontario “will be submitting a plan to the (Santa Ana Regional) water board shortly to provide residents on bottled water either a water tank system or a connection to the city’s municipal water supply system. After that plan is approved by the water board, it will be implemented over approximately 18 months,” Tanaka said in an email Friday.

Permanent remedy

The work to clean the plume involves drilling a new well in the plume, running water from it on a separate pipeline, which also must be built, to the Chino Basin Desalter Authority Desalter No. 2, located at 11201 Harrel St. in Mira Loma.

There, the trichloroethylene will be broken up by the churning action in what’s called a “decarbonator” unit and harmlessly vaporized, said Curtis D. Paxton, general manager and CEO of the desalter authority, which was formed to mitigate excessive nitrate concentrations in the groundwater of the Chino Basin.

The nitrates are a legacy of the dairy and agricultural industry, officials said.

Before this can happen, the three existing 25-foot tall decarbonators must be replaced with three 35-foot tall decarbonators. Taller units are needed to effectively break up the trichloroethylene, Todd Minten, operations manager for the desalter authority, said.

Treatment for trichloroethylene won’t start up until 2019, he said.

The demands for beefed-up decarbonators dovetailed with capital expansion plans for the desalter authority, Paxton said.

The desalter authority is made up of the following entities: the city of Chino, city of Chino Hills, city of Norco, city of Ontario, Inland Empire Utilities Agency, Jurupa Community Services District, Santa Ana River Water Company and Western Municipal Water District.