Cities Consider Billing Lockheed for Chromium 6 Costs

Concerned that chromium 6 contamination in the San Fernando Valley aquifer will prevent them from pumping well water, Los Angeles and other cities are quietly exploring steps to recoup losses and cleanup costs from Lockheed Martin Corp. and other companies suspected of causing the problem, officials said Friday.

The aquifer, which supplies as much as 15% of the water supply for Los Angeles, was contaminated over decades of manufacturing in the east Valley. Tough new standards proposed by state officials could force Los Angeles and other cities to close wells, import more water or launch a costly cleanup program.

“The use of chromium 6 by Lockheed and other companies contributed to existing contamination and made it very difficult for the cities to use their ground water supplies,” said Mel Blevins, the court-appointed water master for the Valley aquifer.

“Water rights are essentially a property right and, in this case, it is in the process of being taken away.”

Lockheed Martin, a major aerospace manufacturer in Burbank from the 1930s into the 1980s, had no direct response to Blevins’ comments.

In previous interviews, company officials have acknowledged that chromium 6 used at the former Lockheed factory in Burbank seeped into the soil and ground water. But they say that industrial discharges were not regulated at the time, and that levels of chromium 6 in ground water generally meet current state standards.

Blevins, who oversees ground water pumping rights for Los Angeles, Glendale, Burbank and San Fernando, said possible action against Lockheed and other smaller companies on behalf of the cities could include litigation.

Blevins released documents last month showing that industrial runoff water with dangerously high levels of chromium 6 was discharged for two decades into storm drains that flow to the Los Angeles River.

Although the water was put into storm drains, water officials have said there are indications the chemical could have gotten into ground water pumped by the cities before protections were adopted in the 1960s.

“We are in the process of documenting knowledge and data of pollution that has taken place over the past 40 years,” Blevins said. “Once that occurs, it will be the basis for litigation to make sure those responsible clean it up.”

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power General Manager S. David Freeman said his agency would back Blevins in any effort to recover costs from Lockheed or other polluters.

Chromium 6 is considered a carcinogen when inhaled, though scientists are divided over the threat posed by chromium 6 in tap water.

Officials say that tap water pumped from the basin today is safe because wells are shuttered when chemicals exceed legal limits. But a state agency has proposed slashing the standard for total chromium levels, in order to cut levels of chromium 6.

If approved by the state Department of Health Services, the new standard could force cities to close wells and import more water, which officials say could cost the four cities $50 million annually.