The State : Church Targets Water Polluters

Disappointed by the Environmental Protection Agency’s delay in cleaning up contaminated ground water in the San Gabriel Valley, about 1,100 members of a religious organization voted to offer rewards to individuals who identify companies responsible for the pollution. But an EPA official, who spoke at the East Valleys Organizations’ annual assembly at St. John the Baptist Church auditorium in Baldwin Park, said it would be difficult to positively identify the sources of the pollution that has affected 20% of the 200-square-mile San Gabriel Valley water basin and seeped into 245 of the area’s 400 wells. Under the federal Superfund law, which provides money to remove toxics, the EPA must try to recover expenses from companies that caused the damage.