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Wastewater Fact Sheet No. 2 |
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East Valley Water
Reclamation Project Brief History of the
Chromium Problem And What Must be Done June 12,
2001 This
is the second of a series of fact sheets dealing with concerns and
issues associated with the East Valley Water Reclamation Project (EVWRP).
This project has been proposed to recycle reclaimed wastewater, i.e.,
“toilet water”, for drinking and cooking purposes. Before
we go any further into the background of this project, let’s be honest
about what we’re dealing with. So far, we’ve allowed the proponents
of the EVWRP project to define the agenda and circumscribe its limits.
In part, they have done this by their careful choice of key words and
phrases, i.e., they are attempting to market the project. One of these
phrases, “reclaimed water”, needs a little clarification. If you
stop to think about it, “reclaimed water” is a more polite way of
saying “sewage”. After all, a major part of sewage is made up of
collected community toilet water. So,
without any magical manipulation of language, the real issue is: “Do
we want to drink water derived from sewage?” Of course, we realize
that the water of sewage will be treated, presumably to make it potable.
A key question is how will it be treated? Even now, the proponents of
this project haven’t the foggiest notion of what an adequate treatment
would be, nor of how suitable the treated reclaimed sewage water would
be for potable purposes. Yet, without knowing any details about these
critical issues, we are being told that the treated “toilet water”
would be perfectly safe to drink. I’m not willing to trust my health
and that of my family and children to such assurances. Are you? This
project was first described in the Environmental Impact Report (EIR)
issued by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) in 1991.
This 10 year-old EIR is still being used as the basis for the “toilet
to tap water” project, in spite of the fact that we now know that
there are a number of dangerous, even poisonous, contaminants and
pollutants present in our water used for drinking and cooking. Among
others, these include (1) methyl tertiary-butyl ether (MTBE), (2)
perchlorates, (3) arsenic, (4) lead, (5) mercury, and (6) chromium.
Discovery
of the presence of any of
these toxic substances in source waters to be used for potable purposes
is sufficient to require a new EIR, according to the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Yet, this legally mandated requirement
is being ignored by LADWP, and by governmental enablers, including the
Los Angeles City Council, and other federal and state agencies having
jurisdiction over the quality of our drinking water. Attention
and concern about chromium in drinking water followed publication in
August 1998 of a Draft Proposal for public health goals (PHGs) for
Chromium in Drinking Water, issued by the Office of Environmental Health
Hazard Assessment (OEHHA), an EPA office located in Oakland, California.
This draft was issued with a call for public comments to be incorporated
in a second draft to be issued in November 1998. Publication
of the August, 1998 draft document was followed by a letter dated
October 22, 1998 by the Watermaster for the Upper Los Angeles River Area
(ULARA), Mr. Melvin Blevins. He was appointed Watermaster by a State
court some time ago, and he is legally responsible for the quality and
availability of ground waters and aquifers for potable purposes in the
San Fernando Valley Basin (SFB). SFB waters supply about 15 percent of
the source waters distributed throughout southern California that are
destined for potable purposes, i.e., for drinking and cooking. The
Blevins’ letter was addressed to the heads and members of some 14
agencies concerned about water quality. The letter was a dire call for
help. In his SOS letter, Mr. Blevins noted that water treatment plants
and facilities previously designed and built to treat water for the
removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which they did
effectively, were incapable of treating water to remove chromium and its
salts. He asked the agencies to help establish a chromium task force (CTF)
to deal with the chromium problem. Some
time later, Mr. Blevins said a search of water-related documents
revealed that the chromium problem in the SFB had been known for more
than forty years. Thus, it seems that the silence about chromium was
breached by the OEHHA document. Its publication, while embarrassing to
the Watermaster, also spurred him to acknowledge the problem in his
letter of October 22, 1998, and pushed him into beginning to do
something about it. It
is ironic that one week later, on October 29, 1998, when a reporter from
the Los Angeles Times asked Mr. Blevins about his letter of the 22nd, he
denied that there was any problem, since the State’s chromium
“standard” was not being exceeded.
And he added that his letter was designed to obtain additional
funds for the continued operation of the ULARA office. This denial is
interesting for a couple of reasons. The State MCL of 50 parts per
billion (50 ppb) for chromium is not a standard, and Mr. Blevins knew that. His denial also came at a
time when OEHHA had issued proposed PHGs for chromium in drinking water
of 2.5 ppb for total chromium and 0.2 ppb for Cr VI, a level for this
poison that is one-two hundred fiftieth part (1/250) of the MCL. But the
most obvious discrepancy lay between his denial of the 29th and the
actual text of the letter of the 22nd. The wording and tone in Mr.
Blevins' original letter leaves no doubt about the seriousness with
which he first viewed the hexavalent chromium problem. For instance, he
refers to chromium levels in one particular ground water well in the SFB
of 72,380 ppb in the water! In other reports of the CTF, most notably those accompanying
the minutes of the July 1, 1999 meeting of the CTF, chromium levels in
water, self-reported by companies and corporations located in the SFB,
reached 23,000,000 ppb! By his own description of the problem of
chromium in waters to be used for drinking and cooking, Mr. Blevins’
denial that there is a chromium problem crumbles into dust.
The
most recent concern seems to be centered on the presence of hexavalent
chromium or chrome 6 (Cr VI), the poisonous form of this metallic
element and its salts, in sources of drinking water. The other major
form of this element is chrome 3 (Cr III), which is essentially
non-toxic, except at extremely high levels or concentrations. Cr III
appears to be required in human nutrition as a trace nutrient involved
with the so-called glucose tolerance factor (GTF). As
interesting and important as this brief (and incomplete) history may be,
the intersection of the chromium problem with the proposed water
reclamation project, to provide drinking water from treated and recycled
wastewater, raises several important issues and questions. While the
need for a new EIR is valid, and a legitimate one according to the
requirements of CEQA, it is probably moot at this time. First, the Los
Angeles City Council has already voted its approval of the EIR, in spite
of its lack of specifics and other inadequacies, and its questionable
legitimacy. And, in the absence of very strong public pressure for a new
EIR, that body is not likely to reverse its approval. Second, recourse
to CEQA to correct the EIR deficiencies is most likely to be a hollow
exercise, given the Act’s internal weaknesses, and the ease with which
governmental agencies and the courts have flouted its requirements in
the past. Third, a representative of the State’s Department of Health
Services (DHS), present at the February 17, 2000 CTF meeting, to which
Bill Firschein, AIA, and I, Irving Lyon, Ph.D., were invited by Mr.
Blevins to present our concerns about the chromium problem, said
(paraphrasing), “I could submit a request today calling for a Cr VI
standard of 0.2 parts per billion in drinking water, and almost
immediately it would be shot down.” I
asked, “By whom?” He
said: “By the State’s Finance Committee.” I
asked, “Who’s on that committee?” He
replied: “The State’s Treasurer, another member appointed by the
Governor, and the Governor himself. The committee is chaired by the
Governor.” I
asked, “What does the committee do?” He
said: “They decide whether or not any proposal that comes before them
should be OK’d, and placed on the ballot for funding by an issue of
bonds.” I
asked, “Does this mean that the Governor can veto any public health
proposal for financial reasons?” He
answered: “Yes.” This
exchange exposes a fundamental flaw in State law: Any proposal put forward by DHS on the basis of considerations of
public health can be turned down solely for economic reasons. It should
be obvious, in consideration of the wastewater-recycling proposal, along
with the unsolved problem of chromium in drinking water, that public
health considerations must take precedence over economics. And, the only
practical way to remedy the existing distorted situation is by bringing
a lawsuit against State officials, including the Governor, for
violations of the Clean Water Act and its Amendments. We need to bear in
mind that these are public health issues that will have real,
potentially dangerous, impacts on our daily lives, and on those of our
children and their children. The time to act is NOW. Irving Lyon, Ph.D.
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