CONGRESS OKS DRINKING WATER ACT : MEASURE SPARES CENTRAL VALLEY CITIES HEFTY TREATMENT COSTS.

Byline: Michael Doyle Scripps-McClatchy Western Service

California's Central Valley cities Friday won the reprieve they sought, as Congress gave final approval to a new Safe Drinking Water Act.

The legislation now going to the White House for President Clinton's promised signature will be the last big environmental bill to be passed by the 104th Congress. It also resolves some valley water issues that had become embroiled in big-time political controversy.

The House approved the bill by a 392-30 margin, following a brief dust-up over pork-barrel spending, and the Senate approved it, 98-0.

``I'm pretty pleased,'' said Rep. Calvin Dooley, D-Hanford. ``From the city of Fresno's perspective, this is a very good agreement.''

It's not just Fresno that's tapped into the new legislation. The bill establishes a $7.6 billion revolving fund from which local water agencies can obtain money for the next seven years.

By pre-empting stiff standards for radon that had been proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, the bill also means a number of Valley cities won't be facing extraordinarily high new treatment costs.

The Oakdale Irrigation District in Stanislaus County, for instance, had estimated it would need up to $7 million to pay for the EPA's proposed radon standard. Fresno estimated it would cost about $191 million; statewide, California water districts estimated it would cost $3.7 billion if the EPA's radon standard had been retained.

Sacramento County advised the EPA it would cost $18 million to meet the radon standard in unincorporated parts of the county. That would double the county's water rates.

``There is not a well in the San Joaquin Valley that could meet that standard,'' said Doug Kirk, chief of water operations for the city of Fresno. ``We definitely can't meet it.''

Instead, the new bill gives the National Academy of Sciences three years to study radon's health effects and the costs of treatment. Radon is an odorless gas, produced by decomposing granite like that found in the Central Valley, that is linked to cancer.

In an important move for the numerous San Joaquin Valley areas that have naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater, the new bill likewise orders a study of whether standards for arsenic in drinking water should be tightened. The EPA had been on the verge of proposing much tougher - and therefore more costly - arsenic standards than those currently in place.

Smaller, aging irrigation districts throughout the Sierra Nevada got a little of what they wanted, too.

These irrigation districts that provide incidental water supplies to newly sprouted homes could have been required to meet tougher standards applied to public water supplies.

Instead, according to a spokesperson for the Association of California Water Agencies, districts like the El Dorado Irrigation District and the Tuolumne Utilities District will have a two-year transition period to provide alternative water supplies or filters to protect users from untreated water.

``It's good for public health protection, and it's good for the water supply community,'' said Dave Reynolds of the Association of California Water Agencies. ``Everybody is very pleased.''

Overall, the legislation updates a law first written in 1974. It became an important bill for congressional Republicans eager to shed the anti-environment taint with which Democrats have been painting them.

The bill lifts the EPA's current requirement to set standards for 25 additional drinking water contaminants each year. The agency instead will focus on the most dangerous health risks. At the behest of Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer, it extends nationwide a California requirement that water systems annually inform customers of contamination problems.