Hayden Urges Faster Action on Health Threat

Saying the state has taken too long to deal with a public health threat, state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) on Monday called for expediting a proposal to reduce levels of chromium 6 in public drinking water supplies.

In a letter dated Monday, Hayden asked Department of Health Services Director Diana M. Bonta to accelerate review and implementation of a tougher standard.

Hayden’s action came in response to a Times story Sunday, in which health officials said it could take five more years to implement a 1998 recommendation to reduce chromium 6 in drinking water.

“Instead of five more years of delay in setting new standards, I would urge that you fast-track your agency’s response to the 1998 . . . recommendations,” Hayden wrote Bonta.

Hayden also called on state Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford), chairman of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, to convene hearings on the ground water contamination issue.

Sher did not return a call for comment, and an aide said Bonta was out of state and could not be reached for comment.

DHS spokeswoman Leah Brooks said agency officials had not seen Hayden’s request and would have no comment on fast-tracking the proposal.

As for Senate hearings: “If such a hearing is held, DHS staff will be happy to share any information that we have about chromium 6,” Brooks said.

Citing a potential health threat, the state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment two years ago proposed reducing allowable levels of chromium in drinking water from 50 parts per billion to 2.5 parts per billion. That action is designed to reduce the amount of chromium 6, based on the assumption that chromium 6 comprises 7.2% or more of each chromium sample.

Chromium itself is a benign element found in nature. But, when used in some manufacturing activities, it can transform into the toxic chromium 6, also known as hexavalent chromium.

In explaining the state’s delay in implementing tougher standards, David Spath, drinking water chief for the state Department of Health Services, has said the risks from chromium 6 in drinking water are still being debated and studied along with the costs and benefits of stricter standards.

Spath has also said the state could move more quickly if an imminent threat is determined.

Hayden called the state’s response to the problem “unacceptable gradualism.”

“My greatest concern with health agencies in Sacramento is that they’ve been captured by a mentality that they have to calm people down,” Hayden said in an interview. “It should be the other way around. They should be operating on the precautionary principle of better safe than sorry.”

The presence of the chemical in local water wells currently varies from trace amounts to concentrations as high as 110 parts per billion in Burbank, said Dixon Oriola, a senior engineer with Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Wells pumped by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power range from trace amounts of chromium to 30 parts per billion, or more than 15 times the proposed state standard, Oriola said.

Medical experts say chromium 6 is a carcinogen for numerous animal species, including humans, and that it should not be present in water. Unlike a chemical such as cyanide, they say, chromium 6 can cause cancers and other ailments over time.

But water officials point out that the U.S. government and California currently classify chromium 6 as a carcinogen when inhaled but not when ingested in water.

They insist tap water is already safe because California chromium standards are more than twice as strict as required by the federal government. They say the impact of a 2.5 part per billion health standard for chromium or chromium 6 would be economically devastating.