Scientists Push Tough Chromium 6 Standards

Saying there is compelling scientific evidence that it causes cancer, a panel of scientists urged state officials Tuesday to tighten standards for chromium 6 in water and begin immediate efforts to purge the chemical from water supplies.

In testimony before a packed hearing at Burbank City Hall, toxicology professor John Froines of the UCLA School of Public Health said studies have shown chromium 6 to be a carcinogen when inhaled through the air, making it a likely carcinogen when ingested through water.

Froines, chairman of the advisory board for the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, said the state should not delay taking action, even though scientists and regulators are still debating the risk posed by chromium 6.

“You can take the political, legal and economic argument [against the tougher standard], and it will go on for 10 years,” Froines said. “We should assume the correctness of the state’s public health goal for chromium 6 and begin from there.”

Froines was one of nearly two dozen experts, regulators and citizens to testify before the joint hearing of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, the Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee and the Assembly Committee on Environmental Safe and Toxic Materials.

The joint hearing was called by state Sens. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles). It was chaired by state Sen. Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento), and about 200 people attended.

Schiff called on the Department of Health Services to issue an “action level,” which would not have the force of law but would urge all local water agencies to meet a chromium standard as quickly as possible.

“An action level doesn’t require the agencies to reduce chromium and chromium 6, but it does convey that in the state’s view, achievement of this lower level is in the public’s immediate health interest,” Schiff said.

Two years ago, a scientist with the state’s health hazard office recommended reducing the standard for chromium from 50 to 2.5 parts per billion, which officials say would keep chromium 6 levels below 0.2 ppb.

Officials of the state Department of Health Services, which is studying the recommendation, say it could take five more years to implement a new standard, which triggered Tuesday’s hearing.

David Spath, the department’s drinking water chief, said his agency had urged public water systems to test for chromium 6 and was drafting emergency regulations that would require testing by the end of the year.

But he said the department was not likely to issue an emergency regulation, saying chromium 6 is not an immediate public health threat.

“This is not a case of acute toxicity,” Spath told the joint committee.

Some local water officials say the proposed tougher standard, known as a public health goal, is scientifically flawed and would mean closing dozens of wells. Such a move would cost Burbank, Los Angeles and the city of San Fernando more than $50 million to replace those water sources with imported supplies.

UCLA’s Froines said it was necessary for the state to act now rather than later, citing a soon-to-be-published study linking the inhaling of chromium 6 on the job to gastrointestinal cancer.

Without adequate studies of the effects of chromium 6 in drinking water, he said, that “data is the best we have. It’s the best we’re going to get for a long period of time.”

Froines said he was “personally opposed to spending five years doing standard studies before you get to doing anything about the problem.”

George Alexeef, also a scientist with the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, and USC Associate Professor Joseph R. Landolph defended the state’s public health goal, saying it was done with the best available science pending additional studies.

Chromium 6 was the chemical at issue in Hinkley, Calif., in the case dramatized in the film “Erin Brockovich,” a legal investigator who helped develop the case.

Brockovich and her boss, attorney Edward Masry, testified before the legislative hearing, telling legislators they should appoint a special statewide committee to oversee water quality.