Two local ranchers, including the wife of a board member, asked the Lake Don Pedro Community Services District last month to investigate reports of multiple incidents of large water releases, including one that smelled strongly of chlorine.

Oakdale rancher Tom Gookin, who pastures cattle in the Don Pedro area, complained to the board of directors at their February 16 meeting about several “mysterious water dumps” last fall, before the winter rains began.

Once in December, when Gookin saw the large quantities of water flowing down Hayward Creek, which flows from an area near Lake Don Pedro Elementary School, he said the water “smelled to high heaven” of chlorine, with fumes strong enough to “burn your nose.”

Gookin voiced fears that his cattle would lose weight because they wouldn’t want to drink the water.

“Do you have the right to dump this water down the creek?” he asked. “If it’s not fit for people to drink, it’s not fit for my cattle.”

While the water flowing through Hayward Creek was the only one in which he noticed the chlorine smell, Gookin said a couple of other times he encountered vast quantities of water in Dry Creek. He said he traced that water to the vicinity of the LDP Community Services District office on Merced Falls Road.

Gookin questioned why there would be such huge quantities of water flowing from the subdivision during a 3-year drought.

After Gookin spoke, Betsy Ross, wife of director Emery Ross, read a statement describing an incident in which 10 of their cows became sick “with a mysterious illness” on November 1. The cows went off their feed, and their digestive tracts stopped working. A couple of their cows had stillborn calves.

Mrs. Ross said, “We are left with the following questions: Was any of the super-chlorinated water that went down Hayward Creek injected into the CSD’s water system? Was this the cause of the mysterious illness?”

Emery Ross also went to the podium to read a statement from a property owner on Casilla Court, who stated that two of his llamas developed “significant problems with their digestive tract” and died in early November.

Directors promised an investigation at that meeting. In the meantime, one local resident reported, “rumors are flying … people are buying filters (for their water).”

The board held a special meeting February 24 to address the allegations.

Interim General Manager Jeff Mann reported that “Director Ross’s accusations of a conspiracy and/or cover up of these situations are simply not true.” He said Ross “got his information from an ex-employee of the district and most of the facts he received were incorrect.”

Mann acknowledged that an “operational mistake” at the water treatment plant did occur during a filter backwash December 10, but that happened more than a month after the animals in question sickened and died.

Mann reported that the mistake “was discovered before the chlorine level reached the maximum contaminant level of four parts per million.” He added that “The higher-than-normal chlorinated water was immediately flushed out of the system to ensure that all water leaving the treatment plant was safe to drink.”

“This was not a California Department of Public Health reportable incident, and all (required) procedures were followed,” he said.

Regarding the large amounts of water in Dry Creek, Mann said the water likely came from the treatment plant, which uses 80,000 gallons of water two to three times per week to backwash plant filters.

Mann said it is impossible for water directly from the treatment plant to enter Hayward Creek.

“The water that Mr. Gookin saw that day had to come from another source, either within our water system or another source entirely,” he said.

He suggested it might have come from a two-inch blow-off line on a pressure-reducing valve at Banderilla and Hidalgo. That water runs into Hayward Creek, but the water, from the Coronoado Tank, “has a very low chlorine residual,” Mann said. He added that another possible cause was that a resident of Jardincinto Court drained a swimming pool sometime that month.

“Even slightly chlorinated water that is being churned up in a creek will discharge a chlorine odor,” Mann said.

In responding to the district’s explanations, Gookin expressed doubt that the quantity of water he saw could have come from a two-inch valve or a modest-sized Doughboy-type pool.

He also commented on the lack of fish and insect life in one of the waterways in question. “We didn’t have a problem before the subdivision was here,” he said. “I hope the creeks going through ranch land won’t become toxic waste dumps.”

The district staff asked that people who notice problems call the district office at 852-2331 to report them so they can be investigated.

In other business at the February 16 CSD board meeting, Don Pedro resident Lew Richardson asked the board why there has been no action on his demand nine months ago that they investigate “a possible unapproved and illegal raw water connection with the golf course,” by a local resident, which he believes poses a threat of cross-contamination to the district’s water system.

Richardson did not name the property owner, but described him as “a former oath-sworn CSD director.”

Board president Wes Barton told Richardson that “we’ll have this investigated and it will be on the agenda (in March).”

The board also voted 3-2 to allocate $244,900 in funds toward capital improvements for the coming year, including the treatment plant upgrade, septic system replacement, and the repair and cleaning of two water tanks.

Emery Ross and William Kinsella voted “no.” Ross said he disapproved of the request by Interim General Manager Jeff Mann to use $31,500 of that money to hire outside contractors to help the district staff get caught up on repairing leaks.

Ross said all projects over $24,000 must go through a lengthy formal process which involves issuing a Request for Proposals and going out to bid.