California Pushes for More Water Safety Standards
By John Millrany - March 30, 2001If you move up the chromium scale—chromium being one of nature’s metallic elements—just doubling chromium 3 to 6, you may find something you didn’t really want to, but you can’t help but think: I’m glad I did.
Some of this is going through the heads of state health officials who have taken initial steps to set safe drinking water standards pertaining to chromium 6, the substance most people first heard about in the promos, trailers and the Hollywood flick "Erin Brockovich." Now everyone knows that chromium 6—after residents of the desert town of Hinkley won a $333 million damage settlement from Pacific Gas and Electric when the utility’s tanks leaked high concentrations of chromium 6 into groundwater—is pretty nasty stuff.
As government wonks are oft want to do, they’ve been studying the extent of chromium 6 contamination for a long time. Now they’ve divined that there’s more of this stuff around than they’d previously thought.
Chromium can assume two different structures in water, chromium 3, which is found naturally in food, and 6, which scientists believe is carcinogenic when inhaled.
The emphasis on safety standards is "safe." The federal standard for chromium, including 3 and 6, is 100 parts per billion, while the state’s is half that at 50 ppb. California is considering dropping that to as low as 2.5 ppb.
"Conventional wisdom was that there was more chromium 3 and very little chromium 6 in the groundwater," said David Spath of the state Department of Health Services. "We found the opposite, which heightened the issue."
Oops. Now state health officials say they’re going to be looking at whatever health effects of ingesting chromium 6 might be, the better to attack the evidently unknown exigencies of the dratted material.
The city of Glendale has been a lead agency in attacking the chromium conundrum. California has asked the Feds for $6 million for a pilot treatment plant that could remove contaminants like chromium. On March 28, Glendale Congressman Adam Schiff urged a House Appropriations subcommittee to cough up $3 million for Glendale, adding to the $6 million already being solicited.
If put into effect, the pilot plant "will result in the first definitive evaluation of technologies for removing chromium 6 and other heavy metals from our drinking water," Schiff said, adding, "It is my hope that the research and the treatment facility will provide a model for other municipalities and water suppliers nationwide."
Such a facility would be a first, according to Don Froelich, Glendale Water Services administrator. "The benefits of this research," which would also include satellite studies at UCLA, the University of Colorado and Utah State University, "would help the water industry as a whole, which is why we’re looking for federal funding."
Even if the project goes ahead, officials said a study would take two years and a treatment plant wouldn’t be ready for another four years.
Not that there’s nothing being done on the question of water safety standards in Glendale, which is part of a federal Superfund program designed to remove hazardous chemicals and other toxics caused by decades of heavy manufacturing by defense and aerospace industries, of which there have been many in and around Glendale.
Usually not particularly interested in soliciting federal funds, the conservative city has appealed to the Environmental Protection Agency for permission to keep the city’s Flower Street treatment plant’s water out of residents’ taps until the supply is contaminant-free. However, EPA has ordered the plant put on line to blend the treated water with outside supplies.
Meanwhile, on the arsenic-in-your-water front, President Bush announced March 29 that he will pursue some reduction in the amount of arsenic to be tolerated in drinking water. However, no decision can be made until more scientific studies would determine where the standards should actually be set, the chief executive said.
Current standards, set in 1942, allow a maximum of 50 parts per billion. The Clinton administration had ordered that mark lowered to 10 ppb.
Thus, scientific studies continue unabated, with many numbers still up in the air—the air being another natural element also under heavy scrutiny for safety standards.
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