Tests Show No Danger to Water Supply, DWP Asserts

Recent tests of city wells in the San Fernando Valley showed that radioactivity levels were five times below state drinking water standards, indicating that the area’s water supply is not contaminated, city Department of Water and Power officials said Wednesday.

Nevertheless, DWP officials said they will conduct further tests in the wake of a federal report that prompted Mayor Tom Bradley to ask for an investigation of possible pollution in the northwest part of the Valley.

The report, released by the U.S. Department of Energy on Tuesday, indicated that there was possible radiological contamination at Rockwell International’s Santa Susana Field Laboratory, run by the Rocketdyne division, in eastern Ventura County.

With the Rocketdyne lab situated three miles west of Chatsworth and more than 15 miles from the nearest city water well in North Hollywood, it would take “many hundreds of years” for contaminants from the lab to reach the wells, said Bruce Kuebler, DWP engineer in charge of water quality.

In disclosing the results of the tests, taken as recently as March, DWP spokesman Ed Freudenberg said water officials “are obviously concerned that people will think there’s a connection between a potential problem out in the Santa Susana area and . . . our water supply.”

Kuebler said that the DWP this year is testing all its wells for radioactivity on a quarterly basis, in compliance with state drinking water regulations.

About 15% of the Los Angeles water supply is drawn from wells in North Hollywood and near Griffith Park.

DWP officials said they will provide a report to the mayor by May 24 in response to his request for an investigation.

The Department of Energy report said chemical and radioactive pollution at the lab appears to be confined to the site and poses no immediate threat to nearby residents.

Calls for More Tests

The document called for more environmental tests since inadequacies in the plant’s “ground water monitoring system make it difficult to characterize the nature and extent of contamination.”

Officials of the Energy Department, which has contracted for nuclear work at the isolated research complex, also said some cleanup work will be needed.

Still, “the public has no reason to fear any hazard to human health as a result of the contamination” found to date, said Richard H. Nolan, a department spokesman.

The lab has been on the state Superfund cleanup list because of high levels of trichloroethylene, or TCE, a chemical solvent, in ground water under the complex. Rocketdyne has been pumping and treating ground water in one part of the property where TCE has been found at levels of up to 11,000 parts per billion, 2,200 times the amount that would be allowed in drinking water.

Some Contamination Exists

The Energy Department report acknowledges, apparently for the first time, that some radioactive contamination also exists in soil and structures from nuclear operations and spills.

But agency officials said Tuesday that radioactivity a short distance from the most contaminated spots would not exceed natural levels. They said the main hazard posed by such hot spots would be if the soil were to be scattered as windblown dust.

And Department of Energy officials, contradicting published news reports, said radioactive pollution has never been found in ground water, either under or off the site.