Chromium 6 Action Plan

State Sens. Deborah Ortiz (D-Sacramento), Martha Escutia (D-Whittier) and Jack Scott (D-Altadena) introduced legislation last week instructing the state Department of Health Services to come up with a recommended standard for chromium 6 in drinking water by July 1, 2003. But the department has the authority to issue what is called a drinking water “action level” even sooner.

Nowhere is the need for immediate guidance more apparent than in Glendale, which, because of concerns about chromium 6, has dumped more than $1 million worth of water from a new treatment plant into the Los Angeles River rather than pipe the water to homes and businesses.

State health officials maintain that they have already offered guidance in the form of a state standard of 50 parts per billion, albeit for total chromium, not chromium 6 specifically. (Chromium 6 is a toxic byproduct of the metal, which is used in aircraft manufacturing, electroplating and other industries.) The state standard is more stringent than the federal chromium standard of 100 ppb, but not as strict as a public health goal of 2.5 ppb proposed by another state agency, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. And that’s what concerns Glendale officials.

Glendale in 1993 signed a federal consent decree to accept water pumped from the San Fernando Valley aquifer, which is designated a federal Superfund site. Water pumped through a treatment plant completed last year meets state and federal standards, including standards for total chromium, but has higher levels of chromium 6 than the water the city had been importing for use before the plant opened.

Glendale officials last month called for postponing use of the plant until more is known about chromium 6. Federal Environmental Protection Agency officials counter that shutting down the treatment plant will only delay removal of solvents from the aquifer, the goal of the Superfund cleanup program.

Some compromises seem possible: Blending the well water with imported water would lower the chromium 6 level to 7 ppb to 9 ppb or even lower--to 2 to 3 ppb--if the EPA would permit the city to stop pumping water from two wells with the highest chromium levels.

But the blended water would still have higher levels than Glendale’s imported water. So Glendale officials want to know what level is safe. In the meantime, this city continues to dump valuable, scarce water, underscoring the urgent need for better guidance.

Answers, admittedly, aren’t easy. Health Services officials say it will take years to study the public health goal and decide whether the standard in place now should be changed. Scientists themselves cannot agree on whether chromium 6, a known carcinogen when inhaled as particles or vapor, causes cancer when consumed in drinking water and, if it does, at what level.

We nonscientists prefer our science to have yes or no answers. We have to learn to accept some uncertainties.

But that doesn’t mean, given the public’s concern and the confusing difference in standards, that the public wouldn’t benefit from better guidance, which is what an action level would provide.

The standards now in place, after all, measure total chromium and are based on the assumption that chromium 6 makes up about 7.2% of any chromium sample. But statewide testing has found this assumption to be too low.

Setting an action level specifically for chromium 6 would require water agencies to notify local city councils and customers if chromium 6 concentrations exceeded the recommended level. It would not have the force of law--yet. But it would provide urgently needed guidance until a new standard is in place.