Hayden Calls for the Breakup of City’s DWP

State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) called Thursday night for the breakup of the city’s Department of Water and Power, saying a single agency should not be responsible for monitoring the safety of drinking water while also selling it to consumers.

“There is no one in charge of monitoring the water in Los Angeles,” he said. “That leaves it to the water agencies to tell us about [the quality of] the water they want to sell us.”

Hayden’s remarks came during a town hall meeting he organized to address public concerns about chromium 6 contamination in ground water. Nearly 200 people attended the meeting.

Hayden said part of the DWP budget should be used to support a separate water monitoring and enforcement agency. DWP officials were not immediately available Thursday night to comment on Hayden’s proposal.

Residents who packed the auditorium at Dixie Canyon Avenue School asked numerous questions about chromium 6 in their water.

Former U.S. Rep. Bobbi Fiedler, who was in the audience, urged Hayden and others to first test the drinking water being provided to schoolchildren.

Many who filled the auditorium were there to see Erin Brockovich, a legal investigator whose role in a chromium 6 contamination case in the San Bernardino County town of Hinkley was made into a feature film this year.

In 1996, Hinkley residents won a $333-million settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric after it was determined that the utility’s underground tanks had leaked chromium 6 into ground water.

Brockovich said the state needs an oversight committee to monitor drinking-water safety. She volunteered to serve on such a panel, drawing applause from the audience.

“Somebody needs to oversee these agencies because they are unattended,” she said. “It is important to have a independent oversight committee.”

In response to her proposal, Hayden said, “I think she means someone to restore the public trust. The public thinks the regulators are too cozy with the regulated.”

Hayden also criticized the state approach to setting health goals, saying money should not be an issue.

“It is really a compromise to mix health issues with economic and feasibility issues,” said Hayden, who is a candidate for Los Angeles City Council.

Hayden said he called the meeting to give residents an opportunity to air their concerns on chromium 6 in advance of a state Senate hearing on the issue Tuesday at Burbank City Hall.

“The public should be invited to forums if they can’t make hearings,” Hayden said. “It’s a public forum to raise the public’s awareness to the problem and especially how it takes citizen action to get results, like in Hinkley.”

Although concentrations in Hinkley were 3,000 times higher than those found in Los Angeles drinking water, Brockovich urged residents to push for tougher state standards for chromium 6 and hold water officials accountable for any failure to clean the water.

Citing tests by Los Angeles County toxicology officials that revealed chromium 6 levels as high as 8 parts per billion--about 40 times more than a proposed new standard--Brockovich said chromium 6 should not be present in water at all.

Although the state has no standard for chromium 6, it does set a limit for total chromium concentrations allowed at 50 parts per billion. A state agency has proposed toughening the chromium standard to 2.5 parts per billion, which is intended to reduce chromium 6 levels to 0.2 parts per billion.

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

Some local water officials say the proposed tougher standard, known as a public health goal, is not only scientifically flawed, it would mean closing dozens of underground water wells, a move that would cost Burbank, Los Angeles and the city of San Fernando more than $50 million to replace those supplies with imported water.

The state Senate hearing was called by Hayden and state Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) after The Times reported Aug. 20 that state officials were planning to take up to five years to impose tougher chromium standards.

The hearings--which will include a discussion by government and health experts on the effects of chromium 6, state drinking water standards and the extent of contamination of San Fernando Valley water supplies--are one of several recent actions taken by state and local governments in the wake of the report.

Last month Gov. Gray Davis signed SB 2127, sponsored by Schiff, that would require the state health department to determine chromium 6 levels in drinking water supplied by San Fernando Valley aquifers, assess the risk to the public and report its findings to the Legislature by Jan. 1, 2002.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a measure to expand the search for the suspected carcinogen in local tap water supplies after a pilot test program of 110 government facilities--such as day-care centers, libraries and clinics--found chromium 6 in tap water at levels as high as 8 parts per billion.

Other cities such as Glendale and San Fernando have called on water officials to test local tap water. And Wednesday, Assemblyman Jack Scott (D-Altadena) wrote the Department of Health Services asking the state to test tap water across the state for chromium 6 and report the results in a year instead of by Dec. 31, 2003, which the agency called for in draft regulations.