Santa Rosa embraces water filters as quick fix for post-fire Fountaingrove contamination

When Jan Verspecht returned in November to his Fountaingrove home, which miraculously survived the Tubbs fire, he turned on the water and noticed a strange odor.

He reported the smell to the city, setting off a monthslong scramble to find the cause of the problem, which has since been identified as contamination backflowing into the water mains, and to figure out a solution, which remains elusive.

Verspecht, 50, was initially worried the source of the contamination would be a highly toxic chemical compound, like dioxins, which take a long time to break down once in the environment and can be produced from the combustion of man-made materials.

When he heard that the water in his area was contaminated with benzene, a chemical city officials believe originated from melting plastic pipes and system components, he was actually relieved.

“As soon as I heard it was only benzene, I was like ‘OK. We can deal with that,’?” said Verspecht, an electrical engineer at Keysight Technologies.

Benzene is a volatile organic compound and a known carcinogen. But Verspecht, who doesn’t have training in water quality issues, is convinced he has found a way to easily remove any traces of the compound from the city-supplied water that flows into his Fountaingrove home. And he has publicly urged the city to consider his fix as one option to help people rebuild their homes in an area with a contaminated water system.

“I’m an engineer. Engineers solve problems,” Verspecht, who is from Belgium and who moved to Santa Rosa in 2012 after Keysight purchased his startup company.

The solution Verspecht came up with was to install a ?$5,000 whole-house activated carbon water filter, which he said has removed all traces of toxic compounds.

“I can guarantee it, the water that we drink is the purest that any Santa Rosan can drink,” Verspecht told the City Council recently. “There is hope.”

City officials have been under tremendous pressure to figure out how to restore clean water to an area of 350 homesites in Fountaingrove with contaminated water mains.

They initially said a full system replacement seemed likely and would take up to two years to complete under an accelerated timeline, at a cost of up to ?$43 million.

Residents trying to figure out how to rebuild were not pleased and told the city that if it didn’t find a better solution, there wasn’t going to be anyone returning to the area.

After originally resisting the idea of installing filtration systems, Ben Horenstein, director of Santa Rosa Water, now says it could be just the break the city needs.

Such systems are an “effective and cost-effective” way of removing certain contaminants, and could serve as a good interim solution to give residents the confidence they need to rebuild in the area before the broader contamination issue is fully resolved, he said.

“As needed and necessary and based on the data, when folks are ready for occupancy, these systems will be installed with no delay to allow them to move into their homes,” Horenstein said.

The city announced April 30 that it would provide the systems, and that they could be up and running within four months. There are 13 homes that survived the fire in the advisory area, and only two under construction. For-sale signs litter the 184-acre zone north and south of Fountain Grove Parkway near Fir Ridge Drive, and the contamination issue hangs over the area like a pall.

With filtration now seen by the city as a viable option in the interim, staff members have been able to give anxious residents answers about their rebuilding timelines. It also lets the city to take a more deliberate approach to deciding how to rebuild the neighborhood’s water system, Horenstein said.

“It allowed us to consider a more traditional, less costly approach,” Horenstein said.

The initial $43 million estimate assumed a substantial premium for contractors to finish a project in two years that normally would take longer to complete. The filter option lowers the “level of urgency” that the city had been facing, Horenstein said.

That extra time is important because as the city continues to test and review data, promising signs have emerged that perhaps a more targeted replacement program will work. Hornestein said he plans to discuss that data and options in coming days.

Randy Vogel, owner of Rayne of the Wine Country, a home water-system installation service, is glad the city is taking note of the system he put in for Verspecht.

“I was thinking to myself, ‘Why would you spend that kind of money when you can solve it with filtration?” Vogel said.

Such a system “buys them time” to be able to sort out a long-term solution, he said.

Tests before the installation showed the level of contaminants at Verspecht’s home was low, Vogel said. He said he probably overdesigned the system because it wasn’t clear at that time what the source of the contamination was or why chemical levels varied so widely.

“It was scary because this was not something we’d ever dealt with before,” Vogel said. “I wanted them to be safe.”

The system has two 3-cubic meter tanks outside the Bristlecone Court home, separated by a spigot where water can be tested. Activated carbon essentially captures the contaminants, which are then flushed out automatically every few days, he said.

Tests taken by the city after the filters were installed showed none of the contaminants the city has been searching for - including benzene and a host of related compounds like chloroform and toluene, Verspecht said.

A home brewer, he said the investment offered him assurance that he wasn’t going to be taking any chances with the family’s health or his award-winning beers.

“We just did it for our peace of mind,” he said.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 707-521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.