Yaroslavsky Raises Questions Over Report of Tainted Water

Depending on whom you ask, the Marquardt Co. in Van Nuys is the site of toxic waste contamination that could either pollute one-sixth of Los Angeles’ drinking water--or pose few if any environmental or health problems.

An angry supervisor, Zev Yaroslavsky, didn’t get to the bottom of the matter Tuesday, when he brought county health, fire and toxicological officials to the Board of Supervisors’ weekly meeting to discuss the aerospace and defense firm.

Yaroslavsky, who represents Van Nuys, wanted the officials to answer potentially alarming questions raised in two memos to the board by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control.

That agency, in an Aug. 28 memo, notified Yaroslavsky and his colleagues--per state environmental law--that Marquardt had released “volatile organic compounds . . . known to be likely to cause real and immediate physical injury or result in adverse physical condition,” including dichloroethene and trichlorofluoromethane.

The memo by hazardous substances engineering geologist Andres Cano asked supervisors for support in forcing Marquardt to begin soil and ground water testing.

“It is the DTSC’s belief that the release of these chemicals poses an imminent and substantial danger to drinking water supplies for the City of Los Angeles,” Cano wrote. “The ground water in the aquifer provides 15% of the water supply for the City of Los Angeles.”

But then the state agency did something else: It sent the county another letter that appears to completely contradict the first. That letter, a follow-up to the county’s response to the first memo, was written by Yolanda Garza, a senior hazardous substance scientist in the state’s Toxic Substances Control unit.

Citing the first letter’s statement that “public drinking water supplies in the area could eventually be threatened by these chemicals,” Garza wrote: “We apologize for not placing more stress on the word ‘eventually.’ At this time, the only information we have is that the ground water under the Marquardt Facility property is impacted by hazardous chemicals. . . . The [state] does not consider the drinking water pumped from the operating San Fernando Valley well fields to be contaminated by hazardous chemicals emanating from the Marquardt facility at this time.”

On Tuesday, Yaroslavsky publicly questioned the contradiction, and said that just because there has been no water contamination to date doesn’t mean there won’t be any in the future.

So he called before the board Melvin Blevins, so-called “water master” for the San Fernando Valley for the Department of Water and Power.

Blevins said it would take the toxic contamination about 80 years to reach the ground water tables. He also said there are many real toxic hot spots in the Valley--it’s just that Marquardt isn’t one of them.

In often blunt testimony before the board, Blevins suggested that Yaroslavsky was overreacting, and that he should leave the safety of the water supply to him and other experts.

Yaroslavsky responded testily, saying the Board of Supervisors not only has a right to be involved, but a responsibility to investigate.

At Yaroslavsky’s request, the County Fire Department will investigate and report back to the board.

“He [Yaroslavsky] says, ‘I’m not going to take your word for it [that there is no imminent danger],’ ” Blevins said. “How the hell can he make a statement like that? It’s my legal responsibility.”

An official at Marquardt refused comment Tuesday, referring questions to its parent company, Ferranti International in Lancaster, Pa., which had already closed for the day.

Cano and Garza, the two state environmental officials, also were unavailable for comment. Ron Baker, a spokesman for the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, said the two letters are not contradictory. He said Marquardt was shuttered after its owners filed for bankruptcy, and that soil and water tests showed high levels of dangerous contaminants that had leaked into the underground aquifer, or water table, that is used for drinking water.

But Baker said the contaminated area under the plant is not at the same end of the large aquifer from which drinking water is drawn. “It is a potential drinking water resource for the future,” Baker said.

Asked when that could happen, he said: “It’s hard to tell. We are asking [Marquardt] to put in more wells, take more samples and do further studies.”