How safe is Southern California’s water?

From the Los Angeles Times, on the heels of last week’s story about contaminated water 20 to 30 years ago in the San Fernando Valley & San Gabriel Valley, today a story about just what is in Angeleno’s water:

For years before the mid-1980s, groundwater in parts of Southern California was contaminated with toxic solvents, yet the federal body responsible for tracking this didn’t investigate the potential health threat to people who were drinking contaminated tap water. A congressional committee is now investigating why that neglect occurred.

Here’s a closer look at what scientists know about the main solvents of concern and their health effects.

Trichloroethylene (TCE) and the related compound tetrachloroethylene, also known as perchloroethylene (PCE or PERC), are industrial solvents still used to clean up grease and to dry-clean clothes. For a long time, their use was unregulated and many companies across the nation disposed of them in such a way that they leached into drinking water sources.

In 1980, the Environmental Protection Agency started a Superfund project to clean up a variety of chemical pollutants. The effort includes getting the perpetrators of improper TCE and PCE disposal, many of them defense contractors, to help remove the worst of the contamination across the country.

So should you be drinking bottled water? No need for that, officials say:

Researchers and the EPA say there’s no need, because even with the contamination, people in Southern California are drinking solvent-free water.

Not all water sources in the L.A. area are contaminated. Also, although not all of the groundwater in regions of concern in the L.A. area have been treated to contain less than the federal limit of 5 parts per billion, what comes out of your tap is not the same as what’s in the groundwater.

To read the rest of this story from the Los Angeles Times, click here.

Comments

Admin

• Log in

Credits

Powered by Vertigo & WordPress
WordPress Themes by Brian Gardner