EPA Extends Deal Allowing Glendale to Dump Its Water

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday extended for 60 days a deal that permits the city of Glendale to dump millions of gallons of chromium 6-tainted drinking water into the Los Angeles River instead of piping it to homes.

“Until we are told the water is safe, we are hesitant to start delivering it,” Glendale spokesman Ritch Wells said.

Glendale was supposed to start accepting the water Sept. 25. Pumped from the polluted aquifer beneath the east San Fernando Valley--a federal Superfund site--the water has been treated to remove solvents, but not the suspected carcinogen chromium 6.

The EPA initially granted an extension last fall, and on Thursday extended that to March 5 following a three-hour meeting with Glendale officials and others at EPA offices in San Francisco. Wells said the city asked for more time to consider other options, including building a costly treatment system for reducing chromium 6.

Although the water meets the current state standard of 50 parts per billion of total chromium, a state agency has proposed tougher limits designed to reduce chromium 6 levels to 0.2 ppb.

By contrast, the water being treated and dumped into the Los Angeles River contains chromium 6 levels as high as 16 ppb, Glendale water services administrator Donald R. Froelich said in a Jan. 2 letter to the EPA.

Glendale’s current water supply has a chromium 6 level of less than 1 ppb, Froelich said.

Public concern about the potential health threats of chromium 6, or hexavalent chromium, prompted city officials to ask the EPA to stop pumping the water.

Wells also said the city has urged the state to adopt a specific standard for chromium 6, which is now regulated indirectly under total chromium levels.

At Thursday’s meeting, the EPA gave the city of Glendale until Jan. 31 to submit alternative plans for using the ground water. The parties will meet again in February.

“We are right now studying the alternatives that we have,” Wells said. “The technical consultant is working on a treatment plan.”

EPA officials, meanwhile, argue for operating Glendale’s new water treatment system at full capacity because they say it is essential for reducing toxic solvents in the aquifer. Glendale had agreed to use the water from the treatment plant as part of a court order in the Superfund case.

EPA officials also said dumping the water into the river wastes a valuable commodity.

“Our goal is to reach an agreement and put the water to use within 60 days,” EPA spokesman Randy Wittorp said. “The water meets all the health standards.”

The amount of chromium 6 being dumped into the river at times exceeded the limit of 11 parts per billion for total chromium discharges, a standard enforced by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, Wittorp said.

But on Thursday, Wittorp said the level has been reduced by pumping less water from the two most contaminated wells.

The treatment plant is supplied by seven wells.

Mel Blevins, the court-appointed water master for the Valley aquifer, suggested shutting down the two wells with the highest chromium 6 concentrations, and then blending the water from the other five wells to lower the chromium 6 level.

Blevins estimates that more than $1 million worth of water already has been wasted in the first three months that Glendale water has been dumped into the river and channeled into the ocean.