Groundwater Pollution Hotspots - GeoTracker

Before HTO, many buildings, apartments, and/or low-income housing projects were built on top of polluted groundwater. In the old days, people thought the ground was solid earth, so they dumped paint, solvents, and other chemicals onto the ground. These chemicals seeped through the ground and into shallow groundwater. As early as 2000, HTO started charting shallow groundwater pollution beneath the City of Santa Barbara, with a focus on locating the old city Landfill. Our staff looked at monitoring well data, dug through old city files, and finally contacted SB County Hazmat about the issue. After years of research on the City and County’s groundwater wells and boring reports, and with approval from SB County Board of Supervisors, HTO coordinated with SB County Fire, to combine their Hazmat records with our paper records – and all of this went over to the Regional Water Quality Control Board. HTO hired intern Sarah Treadwell to work at RWQCB offices, digitizing the paper information, and this work has resulted in Geotracker, a database containing all the information on contaminated properties in California. HTO extends BIG thanks to hazardous materials specialists Paul McCaw (now retired) and Thomas Rejzek, for their manning of the Regional Board’s Site Mitigation department, and for their diligent work in enforcement.

Cleanup Orders

Heal the Ocean has spent years of staff time and money on the issue of cleaning up toxic groundwater beneath the City of Santa Barbara, and we have helped both financially and with manpower to incorporate pollution information into the California State Water Board’s GeoTracker system. The computerization of this data has made it easier to identify pollution and its sources, and the cleanup orders are now being issued to property owners. HTO is copied on every order, and for this we thank Thea Tryon, RWQCB Engineering Geologist, who generates the orders. Click below see cleanup orders or to find more information.

Some of the chemicals found in groundwater include:

  • Vapor Intrusion

  • 1, 2, 3 TCP in groundwater

  • Volatile Organic Compound intrusion

  • PCE groundwater pollution

  • Chlorinated VOCs

  • Etc.