$775,000 OK'D FOR WATER, E.R.

Byline: Daily News

The House of Representatives approved a bill Tuesday that includes $775,000 toward two efforts in the Santa Clarita Valley - cleaning up groundwater and buying high-tech emergency room equipment for the private Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital.

The Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006 passed the House by a vote of 399-17 and awaits the president's signature.

The bill includes $500,000 for the Castaic Lake Water Agency's continued effort to clean up perchlorate from the local groundwater supply. The rocket-fuel residue is believed to have leached into the water supply from the defunct Whittaker-Bermite explosives manufacturing plant in Saugus. The contamination has forced municipal water suppliers to cap four wells.

The bill also appropriates $275,000 for Newhall Memorial's cardiac catheterization laboratory. The money would help pay for imaging technology to be used in diagnosing and treating heart disease. The hospital currently relies on drugs to treat heart-attack patients in the emergency room and, in most cases, must then transfer them to other hospitals.

``The money allotted for the Whittaker-Bermite and Henry Mayo Hospital will take large strides in improving the water quality and health of our community,'' U.S. Rep. Howard P. ``Buck'' McKeon, R-Santa Clarita, said in a press release.