Bill Signed on Water Test for Chromium

As concern rises that chromium 6 poses a public health threat, Gov. Gray Davis has signed legislation requiring state regulators to speed up testing of local drinking water wells.

SB 2127, signed late Thursday, gives the state Department of Health Services until January 2002 to report to the governor and the state Legislature on the amount of chromium 6 in the San Fernando Valley aquifer, which supplies up to 15% of the drinking water for Los Angeles, as well as water for the cities of Burbank and San Fernando.

The agency also faces the same deadline to assess the health threat of chromium 6 statewide. The chemical, a byproduct of metal-plating and other industrial processes, is classified as a carcinogen when inhaled as particles or fumes, but its health risk it poses in water is still debated by experts.

Decades of operation by defense contractors have made the Valley a hot zone for chemical contamination. Parts of Burbank, Glendale and North Hollywood were declared a federal Superfund cleanup site in 1986.

“While the study will focus on the San Fernando Valley, its conclusions, particularly with regard to health impacts, will be relevant statewide,” said the bill’s author, state Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank).

But Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) said the new law doesn’t go far enough to protect public safety.

“The Schiff bill is well intended and is a prod to [the Department of Health Services] to get moving,” Hayden said. “But it does not mandate a chromium 6 standard and won’t protect public health.

“Nobody should be under the illusion that this will protect the drinking water.”

The legislation was introduced after The Times reported Aug. 20 that the state health department had yet to implement tougher standards for chromium, intended to reduce levels of its toxic byproduct chromium 6, two years after the action was recommended by an official in the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.

The health department’s drinking water chief, David Spath, initially told The Times it could take an additional five years to act on the proposal.

But after the Legislature approved the bill, Spath said his agency intends to use its emergency powers to order local water agencies to start testing for chromium 6 in a matter of months.

And in a Sept. 27 letter to Hayden, Department of Health Services Director Diana Bonta said a new chromium or chromium 6 standard could be in place within two years after the agency begins requiring water utilities to test for chromium 6.

“The department’s proposed emergency regulations for monitoring chromium 6 will significantly reduce the time frame,” Bonta said.

“However, collection of sufficient chromium 6 occurrence data . . . will take at least one year.” A cost-benefit analysis, she said, “will require a minimum of six months to complete.”

Chromium 6 was at the center of a famous toxic pollution case in Hinkley, Calif., that became the basis for the movie “Erin Brockovich.” Brockovich, a legal investigator, appeared before the Los Angeles City Council this month to urge tougher standards for chromium 6.

Hinkley residents won a $333-million settlement from Pacific Gas & Electric because the utility’s underground tanks leaked chromium 6 into the water. But levels there were 24 parts per million, exponentially higher than levels in Los Angeles-area water ground water.

Although a formal chromium 6 standard has not been established, the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment believes drinking water should not contain more than 0.2 parts per billion of chromium 6, said Alan Hirsch, an agency spokesman.

Some scientists believe chromium 6 should not be present in water at all. But water officials say concentrations in local water supplies are safe, and that a 2.5-ppb standard for total chromium would require them to close many wells and raise customers’ water rates.

Most utilities do not test for chromium 6, but the state has presumed that it accounts for about 7.2% of the total chromium in water.

Over the past year, the state health department surveyed 30 water systems around California to determine how much chromium, which is not toxic, was made up of chromium 6.

In samples taken from the San Gabriel Valley Water Co., chromium 6 made up as much as 85% of the total chromium--much higher than the presumption.

The state did not report actual levels of chromium 6 in water in the San Gabriel Valley, but amounts range from 3.6 ppb to 11 ppb, according to Carol Williams, executive officer for the San Gabriel Valley watermaster’s office.

In tests of Los Angeles Department of Water and Power wells, chromium 6 was as high as 4.65 ppb, said Pankaj Parekh, the DWP’s manager of regulatory compliance.

Last month, Parekh said the DWP closed two wells in which total chromium levels registered about 20 ppb. He said officials did not test for chromium 6 levels in those wells.

“We felt, better to be safe than sorry,” he said.

Also in response to The Times’ story, Los Angeles County officials began tests of tap water at 100 facilities countywide, including fire stations, health centers and courthouses. According to preliminary results, chromium 6 was found in several places in amounts ranging from trace levels to as much as 7.5 ppb, said Wasfy Shindy, director of the county’s environmental toxicology lab. He said complete results are expected next week.