Speed Up Water Review

Outgoing state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) so far is the only public official to raise questions about how long it’s taking the state to review and implement tougher standards for chromium 6 in public drinking water.

What happened to all those self-styled stewards of the public’s health who earlier this summer denounced a plan to recycle treated waste water? Granted, chromium 6 will not likely make the joke lineup on “The Tonight Show,” as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power recycling plan did. And debating chemical parts per billion will not produce the same catchy sound bites as denouncing sewage. But there’s far more at stake here than the public’s squeamishness.

As a story in last Sunday’s Times pointed out, the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment two years ago proposed reducing allowable levels of chromium in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 2.5 parts per billion.

Chromium itself is not dangerous, but in heightened levels it can indicate the presence of chromium 6, a toxic hybrid that results from manufacturing activities such as hardening steel and making paint pigments, the kinds of activities found in the east San Fernando Valley’s aerospace industry.

Tests of Valley wells have turned up chromium in ground water ranging from trace amounts to 30 parts per billion in wells pumped by the DWP and to 110 parts per billion in Burbank wells--more than twice the current state standard and 50 times the proposed one. The amount of chromium 6 in such samples could be even greater if assumptions about the ratio of chromium to chromium 6 prove wrong.

Before the state can adopt stricter standards, the state Department of Health Services is required to study the risks posed by chromium 6 and calculate the costs and benefits of reducing chromium levels. This alone could explain the silence of politicians who may, after all, be a bit uneasy when it comes to admitting the role economics plays in public health decisions.

Hayden is calling for an accelerated review and for state hearings. In other words, he wants a more scientific assessment than watermaster Mel Blevins’ statement to a Times reporter that Valley residents have been drinking the water for “‘many, many years” and “I don’t see a lot of people sick.” Enough medical experts have expressed alarm about the long-term effects of chromium 6 to justify a speedy review of tougher standards--and to compel more voices than Hayden’s to demand action.