That's a pretty bold and all-encompassing statement made by Nahai who was then the president of the commission overseeing the DWP and is now its general manager.
Now Nahai is a lawyer and he may be able to spin that statement so that it's true but only if the operative word is all. Because many of those gallons of drinking water contained levels of carcinogens and other contaminants that did not meet the state and federal standards that Nahai's statement suggests they did, according to the details in the report.
So his assertion that all L.A.'s water "met or surpassed" those standards is true only when the levels of carcinogens and other contaminants are averaged out over 12 months. I'm no expert in figuring out whether the gallons that didn't meet the standards harmed anyone or not but I do know they could have so Nahai's guarantee is totally misleading.
My information is that it has been long-standing DWP policy to "hide in plain sight" the water supply problems. The reports over the years paint a glowing picture of the quality of L.A.'s drinking but the dense details that only experts could decipher paint a more troubling picture.
I raised questions Tuesday over the DWP's grandstand p.r. stunt at Ivanhoe Reservoir in Silver Lake where 400,000 black plastic balls were dumped in the water to keep sunlight from causing a chemical reaction between chlorine and bromine which produces the carcinogen bromate. My point was the reservoir is a century old and the 600,000 people in Silver Lake and South L.A. served by it must have been getting doses of bromates over the years.
At Griffith Park, Interrrupted blogger Donna Barstow raised questions about what chemical reactions will occur on the plastic balls during four years in the sun and water.
And the health issue sparked my friend, street-hassle blogger Joseph Mailander to post a lengthy comment here expressing concern over what he believes could be a cancer cluster in the Silver Lake area.
"There are so many people in our Los Feliz, Silver Lake, and Echo Park communities who have contracted some form of cancer over the past few years---it's virtually one of every five people we know who live here for a long time...I believe you would find a disproportionately high incidence of cancer, pointing to some environmental influence."
I also received information from a knowledgeable source that DWP officials have been well aware that a disinfection byproduct called trihalomethanes has spiked sharply at times, particularly when decaying plants and other organic compounds are present as they are in open reservoirs like Ivanhoe.
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THMs include different chemicals -- including chloroform, bromoform, bromodichloromethane, and di-bromochloromethane -- which can produce harmfull health effects.
Federal standards were tightened in the last decade but are based on annual averages, which is how Nahai could make his misleading claim. But the levels of THMs rise in the summer sunlight and heat where people presumably drink more water so it's likely that for periods of time the standard is exceeded.
Statistically, that's not a problem as long as the average for the year is below the standard.
But is it a health problem in the real world? I don't know but it's a question that ought to be answered with a comprehensive health study and the DWP ought to be coming clean about the health risks until we have good answers.
If you google trihalomethanes and pregnant, you will find some disturbing studies that suggest that pregnant women and their unborn fetuses may be at risk. Surely, that's something the public should have been told about.
It's no secret that some DWP officials have long pushed to cover all reservoirs and overhaul the entire water storage system but for the most part the department has been slow to act, citing the cost. When it comes to the DWP with its spectacularly inflated payroll costs and endless giveaways of public money, It is obscene to suggest that it costs too much to protect the public health.
Questions about what's in the drinking water and how safe it is go beyond THMs. Science has progressed to the point that minute amounts of all kinds of dangerous chemicals can be detected in the slightest amounts.
Shouldn't every one of those chemicals and their possible health impact be clearly disclosed and steps taken to eliminate them?
And then there's the issue of toilet-to-tap which the mayor has flip-flopped on and now supports serving it up as soon as possible to the Valley and Eastside.
Ron Kaye is the former editor of the Los Angeles Daily News where he spent 23 years helping to make the newspaper the voice of the San Fernando Valley and fighting for a city government that serves the people and not special interests.
Twice in recent years, Los Angeles Magazine listed Kaye among the city’s most influential people, specifically in the area of politics. Kaye has been variously described in the media as the “accidental anarchist,” “the Patrick Henry of the San Fernando Valley” and a “passionate populist.” He is now committed to
carrying on his crusade for a greater Los Angeles as an ordinary citizen. Previously, Ron worked at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner,
Associated Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer and The Australian as well as papers
in Fairbanks, Alaska and Yakima, Wash. He also wrote for Newsweek magazine, The Guardian in London and the Naitonal Enquirer.
I don't see any mention of mercury content levels anywhere in the report, or elsewhere "hidden in plain sight". There is mention of other metals such as chromium, so why not mention mercury? I doubt the reason is that the levels are insignificant.
Reading only from the 2006 report you link to:
-- The state and federal standard for Total Trihalomethanes (TTHMs) is 80 micrograms per liter, or 80 parts per billion.
-- DWP citywide sampling shows a detection range for TTHMs of 25 to 111 ppb -- which at the high end of the range is nearly 40% higher than the 80 ppb standard.
-- DWP nontheless reports itself as "in compliance" because the annual average is below 80 (they report a "citywide highest running average" of 60).
It seems that they're relying on two key measuring factors to claim they're in compliance: measuring a citywide average for a full year.
The report shows that in some locations, at certain times of year, the level of TTHMs may be well above the standard.
And that appears to be important, because pregant women, or people with compromised immune systems, may be harmed by even short exposures.
DWP appears to knows that. In the very report you link to, in really small type on my printout (I had to enlarge it on the computer screen just to read) the following is reported under "Water Quality News":
First, they feint with the "good news" paragraph:
One of the most significant distinctions of drinking water in the United States compared to other parts of the world is that we practice continuous disinfection of our treated water supplies. This provides some of the safest water anywhere in the world, and helps prevent many water-related diseases that plague other nations."
Then they allude to something more serious:
"However, some studies suggest possible long-term and short-term adverse health effects associated with disinfection byproducts (DBPs), especially one group of by-products known as total trihalomathanes (TTHMs).
"A few recent studies suggest possible short-term effects, including low birth weight and miscarriages. Yet other studies show no linkages or the results were inconclusive. Long-term studies also have associated TTHMs to adverse health effects such as cancer. Scientists continue to study TTHMs to provide a clearer understanding of the risks involved."
And then they drop an ominous warning:
LADWP encourages women who are pregnant or think they may become pregnant to consult their physicians regarding drinking water and pregnancy.
Put all of this stuff together, and here's the story I come away with:
1) DWP knows that TTHM levels are spiking above state and federal requirements at various times and in various locations across the city.
2) But DWP tells customers that when measured citywide and averaged over a year the spikes are attenuated and TTHM levels wind up coming in below the danger threshold -- meaning the water is in compliance.
3) DWP knows that in some locations, at some times of the year, people are being subjected to short-term exposure at higher levels.
4) DWP further knows that some studies show short-term exposure may cause adverse health effects, particularly in pregnant women.
5) So, covering all bases, the department includes a warning for pregant women -- but buries it in tiny type inside a water quality report that is delivered as a bill stuffer to customers, if it's delivered at all, and camouflaged by all sorts of other PR speak designed to minimize its visibility.
Depending on where you're standing, that's either "full disclosure" or "hiding in plain sight" (which is a polite way of saying "covering your ass by exposing it only a little.")
But however you describe it, it seems to put to lie David Nahai's claim at the front of the report that "all 227 billion gallons of water" supplied to customers met or surpassed the standards.
The report itself seems to suggest that some of those gallons, maybe many of those gallons, exceeded the standards. The TTHM data alone shows that (with DWP's only possible refuge in response being to hide behind the attenuation argument -- the standards are based on a systemwide annual average, and don't apply to every single glass of water you pull from the tap).
There are other examples in the same report of the same problem with different chemicals:
-- Total Haloacetic acids. Federal standard: 60 ppb. DWP range: 10-134ppb (at the high end, 120% over the standard). Citywide highest running average: 45, which allows them to claim they're in compliance.
-- Copper at the tap. Federal standard: 1300 ppb action level. DWP range: 1 out of 106 samples exceeded the action level, with the "90th percentile value" is at 802, well below 1300. (According to the report, the 90th percentile is the determinant for compliance. It states that a system is out of compliance if the action level is exceeded in the 90th percenile of all samples at the customer's tap).
So DWP is in compliance on copper. But let's look closer at the fact that one sample tested over the range. Granted, it's only a single sample. It represents less than 1% of the sample size. But if you extrapolate that percentage across DWP's total customer base (I've seen it reported as 3.8 million households, although Nahai says 4 million in the report) you've got a lot of households presumably at risk. At 3.8 million, it's over 35,000. Good odds, I guess, from a percentage standpoint. But I hope I'm not one of those households.
-- Lead at the tap. Federal standard: 15 ppb action level. DWP range: 2 out of 106 samples exceeded the action level, with the "90th percentile value" at 10. So DWP is in compliance.
But as with copper, let's look at the two tests over the range. Two out of 106, or 1.88%. If the customer base is 3.8 million households, that's 71,440 households at risk. Again, pretty good odds from a percentage standpoint. I just hope I'm not in that household.
-- Chlorate. This is listed as "unregulated contaminant reported on an area-wide basis," but the report indicates there is a "notification level" of 800ppb. According to the table, in Western Los Angeles the average is below 800 ppb (609), but the detection range is 340-851 -- over the notification level at the high end.
By the way, the chlorate numbers are substantially higher in West LA than the other regions that are reported. The ranges/averages are 22-313/168 in the Valley; 117-252/191 in Central LA; 104-726/250 in Harbor/Eastern LA; and 340-851/609 in West LA. What's going on there?
Anyway, interesting reading. Hope it makes everyone pay closer attention to the information DWP is putting out...
This is really scary stuff. Shouldn't we be warned about risks to pregnant women? Nobody needs those bill inserts.
It is really scary when you stop to think about the what "they don't" tell you about water quality, so much so that we decided to have both a whole house water filter and then both a kitchen under the sink filter and a shower filter. Hopefully we are catching most of the bad stuff.
Carcinogenic chemicals from toxic waste dumps have contaminated Los Angeles drinking water. Closed dumps (landfills) are adjacent to spreading grounds in Sun Valley, where drinking water is stored before being piped to homes for consumption. TCE and other chlorinated hydrocarbons will continue to contaminate the spreading grounds for our drinking water until government agencies come up with a plan to clean-up the dumps.