EPA Misses Deadline for Water Cleanup

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which told a congressional hearing June 5 that it would release a comprehensive strategy for cleaning up polluted ground water in the San Gabriel Valley in July, said Thursday that its plan will not be ready until the end of the year.

The delay was announced by Daniel W. McGovern, EPA regional administrator, in a letter to Rep. Esteban Torres (D-La Puente), chairman of the House small business subcommittee on environment and labor, which held the June 5 hearing to find out why the EPA is not moving faster on the cleanup.

McGovern said in his letter that the EPA wants to give local and state agencies a chance to comment on the plan before releasing it to the public. “After we have worked with other agencies to refine our strategy, we expect to release the plan to the public by the end of the year,” he said.

About 25% of the water wells in the San Gabriel Valley are contaminated with chemical compounds that are suspected of causing cancer. The pollution was discovered nearly 10 years ago, and the EPA has been working on the problem since 1983.