Brockovich Warns of Threat in Local Water

Erin Brockovich, the woman who made chromium 6 a household name after being the subject of a popular Hollywood film, appeared before the Los Angeles City Council on Friday, chastising state and local officials for what she characterized as a dismissive attitude toward the chemical threat in local drinking water.

“People are being exposed to a poison in their water,” said Brockovich, a legal investigator whose role in a chromium 6 contamination case in Hinkley, Calif., was portrayed in the movie “Erin Brockovich.”

“Don’t dismiss it. . . . [You have to ask] what is the level today? What was it yesterday? How did it get there?”

Brockovich and her boss, attorney Edward Masry, appeared before an abbreviated council hearing that drew about 50 people. Also testifying were Department of Water and Power General Manager S. David Freeman and David Spath, drinking water chief for the state Department of Health Services.

The council passed a motion calling on Gov. Gray Davis to sign SB 2127, a bill requiring an accelerated review of chromium-tainted drinking water.

The legislation was sparked by a Times story last month, which reported that a 1998 proposal to cut allowable amounts of chromium in water--in order to cut the levels of its toxic by-product, chromium 6--was still being studied by state officials, who said it would take another five years to implement a tougher standard.

Freeman downplayed the threat to local water supplies but warned that closing the ground water wells would eliminate about 15% of the DWP water supply.

“Under current approved testing technology, we have not detected any chromium in our customers’ drinking water above 10 [parts per billion],” Freeman said. “It’s like about one eye drop in two swimming pools filled with water.”

Freeman also complained that state officials proposed the tougher standard as a “public health goal.” He said that was an obscure term, but should be considered a level to strive for and not a legal limit.

“Right now we are told privately that our water is OK, while the public is given good reason to think otherwise,” Freeman said. “What is a responsible agency to do?”

Spath, however, said the risks from chromium 6 in drinking water are still being debated and studied along with the costs and benefits of stricter standards.

Spath has said the economic impact of a tougher standard must be evaluated under the state’s 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act, the law responsible for triggering the state’s review of chromium 6 in water.

In the meantime, he added, DHS would be sending out letters to water agencies encouraging them to test in advance of any action by the governor.