The State - News from Feb. 4, 1985

Industrial chemicals or pesticides are being found in wells used by about one quarter of California’s community water systems, mostly below danger levels, a spokesman for the state Department of Health Services said. Under a law passed in 1983, the state has begun testing well water used in the 965 water distribution systems in California that serve 200 or more households or businesses. David Spath, senior sanitary engineer at the Department of Health Services’ Berkeley office, emphasized that the preliminary results don’t cover Los Angeles or any other large California city. They also do not include parts of the San Joaquin Valley where hundreds of wells were closed in the late 1970s because of contamination by the soil fumigant DBCP.