The facilities are an important landmark in the city’s fight against underground water contaminants left behind by war-era manufacturing plants along the San Fernando corridor.
City water contains trace amounts of the chromium 6 — which was discovered in 2000 in ground water supplies in the San Fernando basin — but city officials have said there is no public health threat since local water is currently blended with untainted water from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides up to 70% of Glendale’s water supply.
Still, state officials are looking at lowering the legal limit for the contaminant, pushing local water agencies to stay ahead of the curve, Kavounas said.
The project was fully funded by government and private grants, but Glendale Water & Power — the lead agency on the project — was notified earlier this year that $2.5 million in state funding for the project would be frozen as a result of the ongoing budget crisis in Sacramento.
Already committed to the projects’ building contractor, the decision was made to move forward with the demonstration facilities, Kavounas said.
“The work needs to be done, and if we don’t do it, who will? And if not now, when?” he said. “So we felt, let’s go ahead as planned, and we will sure up with the state later.”
Construction crews were absent Wednesday from the site the Glendale Water Treatment Plant off Flower Way, but work is underway to meet an August deadline.
As it is part of a pilot program, the facilities are meant to be a temporary, said Carols Barrios, a water inspector for the utility.
One facility will test a weak-base anion exchange system that will work like a chemical filter to attract hexavalent chromium from the water.
