Ventura officials have lifted an order not to use tap water in parts of the Pierpont neighborhood, saying it is safe.
The city issued the order for its customers in the beachside neighborhood on Nov. 25, after they said trace amounts of gasoline were detected in the city’s water supply. But a day later, officials said the report of gasoline contamination was caused by a false positive during routine laboratory testing.
“Follow-up testing on multiple additional samples has confirmed that your water is safe,” the city posted on its website shortly before 12:30 p.m. “There is no contamination, and it is safe to drink, cook with, bathe in, and use for hand washing.”
The order had affected an estimated 900 customers, in an area between San Pedro and Peninsula streets, from Harbor Boulevard to the ocean. They were urged to not use tap water for drinking, cooking, washing hands or bathing.
The area was mostly residential but 16 commercial locations also were within the boundaries, according to the city. Two days before Thanksgiving, businesses from restaurants to a hotel shut down in response to the order.
The incident came more than a year after gasoline spilled into the city’s sewer system. Agencies said they traced the source to the Sinclair gas station on Harbor Boulevard.
What caused a false positive in Ventura’s drinking water?
In September 2024, an estimated 2,000 gallons of fuel leaked, some spilling into groundwater and the city’s sewer system. Officials said the spill had not affected storm drains or the city’s drinking water system.
But the city started taking weekly samples from its nearby water line to make sure that did not change.
On Nov. 25, the city received results from samples taken a week earlier. According to the results from Eurofins lab in Tustin, two of the Nov. 17 samples showed positive concentrations of gasoline compounds, said Gina Dorrington, general manager of Ventura Water.
The city sent those results to state officials, and because of the health risk, the city issued an order to not use the tap water.
“We felt that out of an abundance of caution, we should notify the public not to use the water while we go back and confirm additional sampling and rerun the samples from the 17th,” Dorrington said.
New samples already had been taken on Nov. 24, and the Tustin lab tested those and repeated the tests on the previous samples. No gasoline was detected in any of them, Dorrington said.
The city received confirmation of those results on Nov. 26, and the lab said the false positive, or incorrect test result, was “due to carryover.” According to the city, the lab explained that samples run prior to those from Ventura contained high levels of gasoline, which had carried over into the local samples.
In addition to lifting the order, the city also has now isolated the stretch of its water line in the area of last year’s spill, sending drinking water to the area using other pipes.
But for one customer – Motel 6 – a new line had to be put in place. The work has started and could be wrapped up next week, according to Dorrington. In the meantime, wash stations and portable bathrooms have been set up at the location, she said.
The city also plans to identify new locations in the area to continue to sample the drinking water supply.
Why did some residents not get an alert?
On Nov. 25, the city sent two emergency notifications via VC Alert — the first around 1 p.m. and a second shortly before 5 p.m. But a number of residents reported not getting an alert despite having previously signed up for the notifications.
The city has since confirmed that the alerts were mistakenly sent only to those with landlines.
The VC Alert system uses a variety of datasets that allow officials to target messages to listed and unlisted landline numbers, cell phones and email addresses, according to the Office of Emergency Services. In most situations, alerts are sent through all of those contacts.
But on Nov. 25, the city apparently selected just listed landline numbers as the delivery method, which meant others did not receive them.
Officials understand that is incredibly frustrating, said Jennifer Nance, the city’s spokesperson. Ventura’s emergency services team will look into its process to make sure that doesn’t happen again, she said.
What is the status of the 2024 gasoline spill?
After the spill, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board required Neda Oil Inc., the station’s owner, to submit a proposal for monitoring and to trace the extent of the leak.
Plans submitted by FREY Environmental Inc., on behalf of Neda Oil, resulted in digging a series of wells and collecting soil and vapor samples at the site, roughly a quarter-mile from the ocean.
A report filed late last month described recent work, which included using a vacuum truck to remove free product from groundwater monitoring wells. Nearly 829 gallons of free product had been removed from the wells since the process started, according to the estimates.
More information is available at cityofventura.ca.gov/2570/Emergency-Alert.
This story may be updated.
Cheri Carlson covers the environment and county government for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at cheri.carlson@vcstar.com.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Ventura officials report tap water safe; cite false positive test result
Reporting by Cheri Carlson, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
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