WATER WELLS THREATENED DWP WANTS ACTION AS CHEMICALS CREEP INTO RESERVOIR.

Byline: KERRY CAVANAUGH

Staff Writer

More than four years after being warned that a creeping chemical plume was threatening Los Angeles' water supply, the DWP has shut down at least one drinking-water well because of contamination of the San Fernando Valley aquifer.

The North Hollywood well closure means that, for the first time, Los Angeles will be unable to draw its full allotment of groundwater, forcing it to import water at a cost of $7.3 million.

But more troubling than the cost, Department of Water and Power officials say, is the possibility that the contamination will spread and ruin Los Angeles' only local water supply -- the gigantic San Fernando Valley underground reservoir that can serve residents in an emergency.

"It's a tragedy that we're not taking full advantage of our vast aquifer," said H. David Nahai, president of the board of Water and Power commissioners.

"At a time when the Sierra snowpack is miserably low and when we already have to buy a great deal of water ... to have a situation where we cannot take advantage of our own aquifer because of contamination that is not acceptable."

While reluctant to point fingers, DWP officials said they're frustrated that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not act more quickly to treat the contamination.

In a strongly worded letter sent to the EPA in March, DWP General Manager Ronald Deaton complained about the slow progress and demanded immediate help.

"More than 20 years have passed and despite best intentions, efforts to deliver a remedial plan to protect a valued drinking water source for millions of Los Angeles residents have fallen short," he wrote.

Nahai said the situation has become so serious that the DWP may have to conduct a multimillion-dollar cleanup itself and seek reimbursement later.

Frustration over delays

For years, the DWP has routinely shut down or restricted wells contaminated with high levels of industrial solvent -- or diluted wells with lower levels -- in order to provide customers with water that is safe to drink.

"If there's a well that's contaminated, we're going to turn that well off. We're not going to supply water that's not safe to our customers," said Jim McDaniel, DWP chief operating officer for the water system.

In recent months, the DWP has shut down one well in North Hollywood and restricted pumping in a well field in Arleta because of contamination.

Los Angeles imports 85 percent of its drinking water from the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Colorado River, with the San Fernando Valley groundwater basin supplying the rest.

And in dry years, like this one, the city can draw as much as 30 percent of its supply from the groundwater, saving on the cost of importing more water.

This year, however, the spreading contamination means the city will be able to draw only 10 percent of its supply from local groundwater.

That has raised the ire of some who note the DWP and water authorities have known for years about the contamination threat.

Melvin Blevins, who was watermaster for the Upper Los Angeles River Area, warned in 2003 that chromium 6 contamination posed a "clear and present danger" to local water supplies.

Blevins called on the EPA to pursue polluters and make them pay for the cleanup.

But Mark Mackowski, the current watermaster, said not enough has been done in the intervening four years.

"We identified an imminent problem and some of the predictions we made are occurring. Now we're expressing some level of frustration that we didn't get on this problem earlier, and we need to do some catch-up on chromium," he said.

EPA Superfund Section Chief Fred Schauffler said the agency shares city officials' concerns and is studying how to deal with the contamination.

The EPA already oversees a massive groundwater cleanup in the Valley that started in the 1980s, when chemicals dumped during the World War II-era munitions and aerospace industry boom began showing up in local water supplies.

In the late 1990s, agencies in Los Angeles and neighboring cities expanded their testing to search for chromium 6, a metal-finishing chemical.

But the treatment plants built by the EPA to remove the previously detected chemicals are not designed to remove chromium 6. That means when chromium levels rise, wells have to be shut down or upgraded with experimental and expensive treatment systems.

Glendale received a grant to develop a chromium treatment plant that will be the first of its kind in the nation. The DWP and watermaster want polluters to pay for future treatment facilities.

"But a potentially responsible party isn't going to write a check until it's shown beyond a reasonable doubt that they caused the problem," Mackowski said.

7 cleanup orders issued

That's where enforcement comes in, and the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board has handled most of the cases so far.

The board has reviewed 4,000 businesses that may have used chromium, and it has issued cleanup orders against seven. Last month the board ordered Honeywell (formerly Allied-Signal) to clean up chromium contamination at its North Hollywood facility.

The site is near a DWP well that was shut down after chromium 6 was discovered at 200 parts per billion -- four times the drinking-water standard.

In addition to treating the pollution, Honeywell has to buy replacement water for the city.

But progress by the water board has been so slow that Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale have offered to pay for extra staff to handle investigations.

And DWP officials wrote in a letter to the EPA that the enforcement actions are temporary measures.

"A long-term solution that addresses all the contamination, not only (chromium 6), must immediately be put in place by USEPA," Deaton wrote.

The watermaster and the DWP believe the EPA -- as the 800-pound gorilla of enforcement -- could do more.

But the EPA's Schauffler said they overestimate the federal agency's power.

"All of us, being state and agencies and the EPA, are working with a certain set of finite resources to deal with enforcement," he said.

He said agencies are limited by California's current chromium drinking- water standard of 50 parts per billion -- and most tainted well-water can be blended with clean water so chromium doesn't exceed that level.

The state was supposed to adopt a new standard for chromium 6 three years ago, but state officials said last week they are still studying the chemical's potential health risks.

"Our enforcement is based around a drinking-water standard," Schauffler said. The lack of a stronger standard, he said, "has constrained our ability to use enforcement actions."

Nevertheless, DWP officials have begun meeting with congressional leaders to put pressure on the EPA.

Increasing groundwater

The threat to L.A.'s groundwater comes as the DWP and Los Angeles County are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to increase the amount of water in the aquifer.

The eastern San Fernando Valley sits atop a vast underground reservoir that could hold 3.2 million acre-feet of water -- enough to supply the entire city for five years.

The DWP has budgeted $30 million for projects to capture storm water and infiltrate the ground with it. State water bond money is being sought for a $78 million project to enlarge Big Tujunga Dam to catch more winter-water runoff that now flows to the ocean.

At the same time, the contamination means the DWP has to cut back on the water it takes from the aquifer.

Some environmentalists say the EPA has never spent enough money on the Valley groundwater cleanup, in part because there hasn't been pressure from the DWP, which has easily imported most of its water.

"We pretty much take our local supply for granted and we're pretty smug in our assurance that we will always be able to take our water from someplace else," said Melanie Winter with The River Project.

"But that's not the reality anymore."

kerry.cavanaugh(at)dailynews.com

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Groundwater contamination

Contamination from industrial solvents has forced the DWP to shut down a North Hollywood well.

Drinking water remains safe.

L.A. will be unable to draw its full allotment of water from the San Fernando Valley aquifer and so will have to spend $7.3 million more to import water.

City officials worry costs could grow without a stronger cleanup plan.

CAPTION(S):

box, map

Box:

Groundwater contamination (see text)

Map:

L.A. water threatened by contamination

Source: Upper Los Angeles River Area Watermaster Services; 2004-2005 water year; EPA

Warren Huskey/Staff Artist