EPA Pledges Action on Water Cleanup

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, criticized for its slowness in cleaning up ground water in the San Gabriel Valley, promised Monday at a congressional hearing in Baldwin Park to step up its search for polluters and force them to pay for removing contaminants.

Jeffrey Zelikson, a top administrator in the EPA’s western regional office, said the agency will announce a long-range plan next month that will give top priority to improving ground water in the Azusa-Baldwin Park area, which has some of the heaviest contamination. He added that the regional office is seeking additional money from the EPA in Washington to carry out the search for polluters.

Seek Offending Companies

Zelikson said the agency intends to identify the companies that have allowed trichloroethylene and other pollutants to seep into the ground water and force them to contribute to the cleanup.

“The focus in Azusa-Baldwin Park will be making the companies pay,” Zelikson told a hearing of the House environment and labor subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Esteban Torres (D-La Puente).

Zelikson conceded that with hundreds--possibly thousands--of companies suspected of allowing chemicals to seep into ground water throughout the San Gabriel Valley, it will be difficult to determine responsibility. But, he said, he believes that polluters can be found and that companies can be forced to help pay for the cleanup.

Suspected sources of the pollution include leaking storage tanks, seepage from landfills and careless handling of chemicals by industrial firms.

Zelikson told the hearing the contamination that has polluted more than 100 of the 400 wells in the San Gabriel Valley is one of the largest and most complicated Superfund projects in the nation. He said the EPA has already spent $8.5 million on the project and has committed $100 million.

But San Gabriel Valley water officials and residents complained Monday that the EPA has made little visible progress.

John Korey, chairman of the toxics task force of the East Valleys Organization, a community action group of 35,000 church families, said: “The San Gabriel Valley has the dubious distinction of having the worst ground water in the state. We’ve had a lot of studies. We haven’t had a lot of action.”

Robert Berlien, general manager of the Upper San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District, said that the EPA should open an office in the San Gabriel Valley and hire more staff. He said that the federal agency has been working on the problem for more than five years but still has not developed an overall strategy or cleaned up any water.

After the hearing, Torres said the problem is not being attacked in a coordinated way. He said he hopes to arrange a “summit meeting” of San Gabriel Valley congressmen, legislators and officials from local, regional, state and federal environmental agencies to develop priorities and a strategy to speed the cleanup.