Chromium

NORTHWEST GLENDALE — State and federal environmental regulators on Monday assured San Fernando Valley residents that the water supply is safe, even as regional water officials work to remove chromium 6 from local aquifers. Speaking at a public water quality workshop at the Glendale Civic Auditorium, Wayne Nastri, an administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, reaffirmed the importance of an ongoing, cross-jurisdictional effort to track and remove chromium 6 contamination from valley industrial sites and, eventually, the groundwater.

TRANSFORMER MAINTENANCE Glendale Water & Power officials will ask for authorization to seeks bids on an oil reconditioning project for 18 electrical transformers throughout the city. City engineers estimate the project will cost $650,000 the first year, and an additional $172,000 a year after that for continued testing and maintenance of the oil that immerses the transformers. The program will recondition oil that, over time, has deteriorated due to continuous heat, oxidation and internal electrical arcing.

NORTHWEST GLENDALE — State health officials got a close-up look Wednesday at the Glendale Water Treatment Plant at what will soon be the next phase of a $4.5-million, multi-jurisdictional study on how to best remove chromium 6 from the regional groundwater supply. Officials for the Glendale, Los Angeles and Burbank water departments have been working to develop a ground-breaking, cost-effective system that would nearly strip groundwater of the cancer-causing element that gained widespread infamy in the 2000 film “Erin Brockovich,” which highlighted chromium 6 contamination in the small San Bernardino County town of Hinkley.

Congressman Adam Schiff announced this week that a federal study has linked Chromium 6 in drinking water to cancer in lab animals. Schiff has been the leader in Washington to support efforts by Glendale Water and Power to find ways of eliminating the metal from drinking water. Chromium is a byproduct of manufacturing efforts in years past in the east San Fernando Valley. According to Schiff, a two-year study by the National Institute of Health's National Toxicology Program found that high doses of chromium 6 in drinking water cause cancer in lab rodents.

GLENDALE — Two facilities that will help strip chromium 6 from the city's water supply are expected to move closer to reality as officials hold their breath over a pending $2-million grant request before a state health agency. The treatment facilities will be built at two separate sites to filter water from wells where unsafe concentrations of the toxic compound have been measured, according to city staff reports. Prolonged exposure to higher-than-recommended levels of chromium 6 — a naturally occurring compound mainly used to finish metal — can result in liver, kidney and nerve damage and may lead to cancer, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

CITY HALL A panel of scientists and water-quality experts advised the city Thursday on various technologies that could be used to treat and remove chromium 6 from local groundwater. The panel was part of the last step in a three-phase, $3-million program that Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale and San Fernando embarked on in 2002 to look for ways to rid water of chromium 6, a naturally occurring compound that has been found to cause cancer in humans when inhaled. Three potential systems were discussed on Thursday.

CITY HALL — A panel of water-quality experts advised the city Thursday on various technologies that could be used to treat and remove chromium 6 from local groundwater. None of the city's water sources come close to containing the maximum levels of the contaminant that the state allows, but Environmental Protection Agency projections estimate that in the next five years, Glendale could exceed that level. "It's important for us to maintain the momentum [toward a solution]

The city has received a $100,000 grant to fund construction of a pioneering treatment facility that will remove chromium 6 from local groundwater. The money, provided by American WaterWorks Assn. Research Foundation, a water industry trade group, will be added to $900,000 in Environmental Protection Agency grants to build a test facility in the San Fernando Road corridor. The facility is the last step in a three-phase, $3-million program embarked upon in 2002 between Los Angeles, Burbank, Glendale and San Fernando to look for ways to rid water of chromium 6, a naturally occurring compound used to finish metal that has been found to cause cancer in humans when inhaled.

The City Council will decide tonight whether to extend an investigation into local sites found to be dumping a cancer-causing substance into the soil, and ultimately into the city's water supply. The city has already spent $100,000 since December 2003 to test the levels of chromium 6 at 250 sites in Glendale and surrounding areas. Los Angeles and Burbank have each kicked in the same amount of money to fund the study, conducted by the engineering firm CH2MHill.