Showdown Near on Chromium 6 in Glendale

The city of Glendale will ask federal regulators next week to shutter a $25-million water treatment facility for the next four years while another treatment plant is constructed to remove chromium 6 from water, a City Council member said Friday.

The move sets up a showdown between the city and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the city’s right to refuse treated well water that the federal agency considers safe.

Since September, the city has dumped more than $1 million worth of water from the treatment plant into the Los Angeles River, according to Mel Blevins, the court-appointed water master who oversees well-water pumping in the area. The city has refused to pipe the water to homes and businesses because of concerns over chromium 6 contamination.

With scientists divided over the health threat posed by chromium 6, Glendale City Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg said a four-year delay in accepting the water will give health officials time to determine a safe level for chromium 6 in water.

“The four years will give us provable results, accurate scientific data and the ability to use the water in our drinking-water system so the citizens will know it’s pure,” Bremberg said. “By shutting [the plant] down, the chromium 6 will not get into our system until we know what the impact, if any, will be.”

Neither Glendale City Manager Jim Starbird nor water administrator Don Froelich would discuss specifics of the city’s proposal to the EPA.

But Froelich said a chromium treatment plant would take four years and $9 million to build.

The City Council has met regularly in closed sessions to discuss what to do about the chromium 6 issue and recently decided to seek the four-year delay, Bremberg said.

But that timetable could change if regulators agree on an acceptable level of chromium 6 in tap water.

The EPA declared the Valley aquifer a Superfund cleanup site in 1986 and ordered polluters to build and pay to operate water treatment plants until all the toxic solvents are removed from the basin. Those facilities, however, remove only organic compounds, and not chromium, from the local water supply.

City Is Obliged to Accept Treated Water

As part of the Superfund process, Glendale signed on to a 1993 federal consent decree, which legally obligates the city to take and deliver water from the new treatment plant.

EPA officials declined Friday to talk about negotiations with the city. But in the past, they have said shutting down the Glendale facility will delay removal of solvents from the aquifer, which is a priority for the federal agency.

EPA officials have also pointed out that the treated water from the Glendale plant meets all current state and federal standards.

After being granted two delays to address public concerns over chromium 6, Glendale officials face a Wednesday deadline to present an alternative water-use plan to the EPA. A week later, on Feb. 8, federal officials will meet with all parties in the dispute in San Francisco.

Unless a compromise is reached, Glendale faces fines of up to $10,000 a day for noncompliance with the consent decree, Froelich said.

Glendale officials say their imported water currently has less than 1 part per billion of chromium 6. By contrast, well water from the Glendale treatment plan has measured as high as 17 parts per billion of chromium 6, according to city water officials.

That meets current state standards, but a state agency has recommended that chromium 6 should not exceed 0.2 ppb for optimum safety. That recommendation is now under review by the state Department of Health Services.

Froelich told a gathering of 350 ground water experts in Glendale on Thursday that Glendale council members “believe they have taken the moral high ground on water quality.”

“They want to be very protective of public health,” he said later. “There is no standard for chromium 6, so how do we assure them it’s safe?”

If the city and the EPA cannot agree on a compromise, a federal judge may have to step in to decide the outcome, said Raymond C. Marshall, an environmental lawyer in San Francisco who specializes in Superfund litigation.

In this case, Marshall believes the EPA has the upper hand because Glendale signed the consent decree, and would have to prove that there has been a change in circumstances since then.

But Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) said he hopes the EPA will heed Glendale’s call for the delay until health issues are settled.

“It’s not clear to me why the EPA would feel compelled to do this,” Schiff said. “It’s adding costs to the city of Glendale, not the EPA. If it’s to perpetuate a decision that was made years ago, that’s a wholly inadequate rationale.”

Dangers of Chromium Not Fully Known

The city of Glendale has not pumped water from the Valley aquifer since the early 1980s, when solvent contamination was discovered and the wells were shut down. Since then, the city has bought all of its water from the Metropolitan Water District.

Chromium 6 is a known carcinogen when inhaled in vapors, but scientists are split on whether it causes cancer when ingested in water. All current health standards are based on total chromium.

A byproduct of metal plating, painting and other industrial processes, chromium 6 has been found in drinking water throughout Los Angeles County.

Blending the well water with imported water could lower the chromium 6 level in Glendale drinking water to 7 to 9 ppb, water officials said. That level could be lowered even more--to 2 to 3 ppb--if the EPA would permit the city to stop pumping water from the two wells with the highest chromium levels.

One of the city’s eight water wells already has been shut down due to high chromium 6 concentrations, Froelich said.

With blending, the chromium 6 levels in Glendale would be lower than in other cities that draw water from the aquifer. In Burbank, chromium 6 levels have been measured as high as 15 ppb, and in Los Angeles, up to 4 ppb.

The City Council voted last week to pay McGuire Environmental Consultants Inc. $50,000 to examine options for facilities to treat chromium 6-tainted water and come up with a timetable to implement a plan.