COUNCIL TO GET TOILET-TO-TAP PANEL SPLIT, BUT SEEKS FINAL RULING.

Byline: Orith Goldberg Staff Writer

The City Council's Environmental Quality and Waste Management Committee decided to send the controversial toilet-to-tap water project to the council for a final decision.

After hearing some of the concerns of a crowd of about 100 gathered at the Cheviot Hills Recreation Center on the Westside on Thursday night, the committee was divided with a majority saying the issue needed resolution.

Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas and Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who was represented by a deputy at the meeting, urged the matter be decided by the full council at a later date.

Councilman Joel Wachs, a mayoral candidate, recommended the project be put on hold as far as drinking water until there could be further testing on chromium 6 contamination.

The proposed $55 million East Valley Water Reclamation Project has been dubbed toilet-to-tap by critics and attacked because it would take sewage water, put it through a treatment process and then send it through the soil to an underwater aquifer for filtration, much like rainwater. It would be drawn out for residential and business use at least five years later.

The project would affect up to 80 percent of Los Angeles, according to the Department of Water and Power.

``This project is about groundwater recharge and has nothing to do with toilet water or sewage,'' Galanter said in a written statement.

She said it ``involves the careful filter and treatment of water.''

Ridley-Thomas said all the issues had been dealt with and it's time for the council to look at the issue.

But the project has attracted considerable criticism.

In June, state Sen. Richard Alarcon and Wachs expressed doubt over the necessity and safety of it. Alarcon cited surveys that said residents didn't approve of the project.

At Thursday night's meeting, Jude Margolis, a member of the Los Feliz Homeowners' Association board of directors, warned residents that additional testing has to be done to determine the safety of such a project.

``Every scientist and doctor I've talked to agreed it's a solution of last resort and the EPA now is not testing for all the toxins,'' Margolis said.

George Abrahams, president of the Beachwood Canyon Neighborhood Association, which is located by the famous Hollywood sign, said he went on a tour of the reclamation plant and was very disappointed with the limited ability to remove contaminants.

``The weak link in the (treatment) process is that it is only good at getting rid of the contaminants that it is designed to remove,'' he said. ``Just because we are plagued with other contaminated sources of water does not automatically mean that we have to add one more.

``The answer is that the water we drink should only come from fresh, pure, clean, natural resources.''

Dr. Stephen Oppenheimer of the California State University, Northridge, Center for Cancer and Developmental Biology said according to a National Research Council report, the reuse of water is ``an option of last resort.''

``Some say this may be the cleanest water in L.A., but this program is like Russian roulette,'' Oppenheimer said.