County to Expand Search for Chromium 6 in Water

Saying tests that uncovered high levels of chromium 6 raised troubling questions about water quality, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a measure Tuesday to expand the search for the suspected carcinogen in local water supplies.

The motion by Supervisor Mike Antonovich, approved unanimously, calls for county officials to test for chromium 6 in tap water at all county government facilities and report the results within six months.

The supervisors also called for chromium 6 testing of 200 wells across the county that supply drinking water, with results due in three months.

The vote follows tap water tests at 110 county offices--including health clinics and day-care centers--that found chromium 6 concentrations as high as 7.84 parts per billion, or about 40 times the suggested maximum level of 0.2 parts per billion.

The findings led Antonovich to call for expanded testing, saying the first results “were troubling and raised more questions than they did answers.”

The county survey found the highest levels of chromium 6--7.84 parts per billion--at the Burbank Health Center, 1101 W. Magnolia Blvd.

Other facilities that had tap water with chromium 6 exceeding 4.9 ppb included a day-care center in Palmdale, county libraries in Rosemead, El Monte and Hacienda Heights, and health centers in La Puente and Alhambra.

State health officials insist the levels detected are safe. Even so, they are studying a recommendation from the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment that could dramatically lower chromium 6 levels.

The county action Tuesday is one in a series of steps by state and local governments in response to a Times story on Aug. 20 reporting that state officials were planning to take as long as five years to impose tougher chromium standards.

Gov. Gray Davis has signed legislation requiring state health officials to report on the chromium 6 threat by Jan. 1, 2002, and the Los Angeles City Council has asked the Department of Water and Power to report on the issue by the end of this month.

California currently has no formal standard for chromium 6, but instead limits levels of total chromium to 50 parts per billion. Water tested by the county fell below that limit.

In 1999, the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment formally proposed lowering allowable levels for total chromium to 2.5 parts per billion.

That proposal--now under review by the state Department of Health Services--would effectively limit chromium 6 to 0.2 parts per billion, agency officials say. Most utilities do not test for chromium 6, but the state presumes that it accounts for about 7.2% of the total chromium in water.

Critics have accused the state of delaying adoption of a tougher standard, but federal, state and county health officials have said the evidence suggesting that chromium 6 is a carcinogen is unclear.

Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky sought to address that issue Tuesday in an amendment to Antonovich’s motion.

The amendment, also approved unanimously, aims to ensure that the county’s Environmental Toxicology Bureau work with state and local health officials in creating testing protocols and assessing the results.

To better inform the public, the board also called on officials in all of the county’s 88 cities to publicly report chromium 6 concentrations in their municipal supplies.

The supervisors further asked Davis to expedite the state’s chromium study and to help defray cleanup costs for Los Angeles County drinking water.

Also Tuesday, Antonovich asked the County Administrative Office to study whether bottled water can be provided at county facilities. The cost of testing tap water at each of the county’s 2,400 facilities will be about $144,000, or $60 per facility.

Chromium 6 played a central role in the Hinkley, Calif., case dramatized in the film “Erin Brockovich.”

Concentrations there, however, were 24 parts per million, 3,000 times higher than levels detected by the county study. Chromium 6, a byproduct of metal-plating and other industrial activities, is classified as a carcinogen when inhaled as particles or fumes.