Cities Seeking Ways to Recoup Chromium 6 Expenses From Firms

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 up to 15% of the water supply for Los Angeles, was contaminated over decades through 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,” he said.

Lockheed Martin, a major aerospace manufacturer in Burbank from the 1930s into the 1980s, had no 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 said 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.

Board Agrees to Seek Depositions

As a preliminary step, the water master office’s five-member administrative board agreed Thursday to seek depositions from those who were involved in documenting chromium pollution dating back 40 years, Blevins said.

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

Although the water flowed to the ocean, 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.

“We’ll back him a hundred percent,” Freeman said.

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

Officials say tap water pumped from the basin today is safe because wells are shut down 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--a move that officials say could cost the four cities a combined total of up to $50 million annually in additional water costs.

Lockheed has already paid $265 million to treat solvents in the aquifer. But the treatment system for those solvents does not work for chromium 6, a heavy metal, water regulators say.

Fred Fudacz, an attorney retained by the water master’s office, said Thursday’s board action is just the first of many steps in what could be a lengthy legal and regulatory process.

First, he said, officials in each city would have to sign on to the proposed process.

A judge then would have to approve the collection of evidence being sought, and the companies that may be sued notified that evidence is being collected, he said.

City’s Records Show High Concentrations

In order to use those reports in future lawsuits, Fudacz said the people who collected the data and wrote the reports should be deposed now.

“We thought it only prudent,” he said, “because of the age of some of these individuals.” Some are in their 80s.

The city logs released by Blevins last month show chromium 6, suspected of causing cancer and other illnesses, appeared in the waste water between 1945 and the mid-1960s in concentrations that at times reached as high as 80,000 parts per billion.

Health experts say any chromium 6 concentration in the thousands of parts per billion in water is considered dangerous.

Since 1996, thousands of Valley residents have sued Lockheed Martin Corp. and other area companies, alleging they were sickened with cancer and other illnesses by chromium 6 and other toxins in the air, soil and drinking water.

To date, Lockheed has paid $60 million to Burbank residents. The company also agreed last month to pay $5 million to about 300 other residents to settle more recent state lawsuits. A separate federal lawsuit by other residents is pending.

Blevins said chromium 6-contaminated runoff seeped into the ground via the Burbank western storm drain and a 7-mile unlined portion of the Los Angeles River, contaminating ground water pumped by Los Angeles and other cities for drinking water, beginning in the 1940s and 1950s.

Logs Show Levels Beginning in 1945

Compiled by the DWP’s Sanitary Engineering Division, the records detail monthly chromium 6 levels in storm drains and a few water wells in Burbank, Glendale and Los Angeles between 1945 and 1982.

Blevins said the records provide the first clear evidence of how large amounts of chromium 6 used by industry during the Cold War could have gotten into the ground water.

State water regulators are also looking at the causes of contamination.

On Monday, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board released a list of 142 Valley sites where the panel has asked property owners to help determine whether chromium 6 may have been discharged in ways that contributed to soil and ground water contamination.

Companies found with high levels could be ordered to remove or treat tainted soil and water, though regulators have said it was not yet clear at what level remediation would be required.

The board had previously ordered Lockheed to conduct chromium 6 cleanup efforts.