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Grant to fund study of element
The $2 million will give Glendale Water & Power a chance to move forward on chromium 6 project.
By Jason Wells
GLENDALE — A $2-million state grant to help fund two pilot chromium 6 treatment facilities in Glendale has been approved, filling a major funding hole in the cross-jurisdictional effort to remove the toxic element from local aquifers, water officials said.
Glendale Water & Power officials received a letter of commitment from the state Department of Water Resources late last week, and are planning to officially announce the funding boost later this week.
“Up until now we were looking to a promise — at this point, we have a guarantee,” said Peter Kavounas, water service administrator for the utility.
The grant application was submitted two years ago for funding through state Proposition 50 — a $3.34-billion bond passed in 2002 to fund water quality and management projects — and has taken until now to be fully processed.
Due to the amount of national attention given to the research — together with the collaboration of more than a half-dozen local and state government agencies and other stakeholders — produced a general expectation that the grant would be approved, but without a letter of commitment, officials had been cautious about moving forward with the $4.5-million project.
“This does kind of remove any hurdles as far as construction,” said Leighton Fong, a Glendale Water & Power engineer involved with the project.
The letter of commitment means Glendale Water & Power — the lead agency overseeing the research — can begin getting reimbursed for project expenses, he said.
With a major funding hurdle out of the way, project engineers can now focus on finishing the design and construction of the two treatment demonstration facilities — one at the Glendale Water Treatment Plant, the other at a well along the San Fernando Road corridor where chromium 6 levels surpass the state threshold of 50 parts per billion.
Water officials have diluted concentrations of chromium 6, or hexavalent chromium — which has been shown to cause cancer in lab animals — from local wells by blending it with untainted water imported from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, bringing the overall level down to just 3.5 parts per billion.
But chromium 6-contaminated groundwater in Burbank and North Hollywood continues to move southwest into Glendale, a migration that the state Environmental Protection Agency warns could significantly increase contamination levels here if no action is taken.
Tightening state water supplies has also made local groundwater production more important, especially to cities that depend heavily on imports, water officials said. Glendale imports about 70% of its water from the Metropolitan Water District.
“No one wants to lose this resource,” said Michael McGuire, vice president of Santa Monica-based Malcolm Pirnie, the lead environmental engineering and consulting firm for the treatment facilities.
McGuire’s firm is wrapping up an analysis of the reduction, coagulation and filtration system, which would use iron to change the physical state of chromium and remove it. A pilot system for that method — which would be built at the water treatment plant — is in the earlier stages of development than its counterpart, a weak-base anion exchange system that will use negatively charged atoms to attract the chromium from the water.
That system would be the first to be built using the state money after a modification to the design is finished, Fong said.
The cost effectiveness of the two treatment options will be studied during their demonstration phase to help determine which one will be incorporated into the city’s water filtration system.
The results will also be shared with other cities and water utilities that face similar contamination issues, water officials said.
JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.
Glendale Water & Power officials received a letter of commitment from the state Department of Water Resources late last week, and are planning to officially announce the funding boost later this week.
“Up until now we were looking to a promise — at this point, we have a guarantee,” said Peter Kavounas, water service administrator for the utility.
The grant application was submitted two years ago for funding through state Proposition 50 — a $3.34-billion bond passed in 2002 to fund water quality and management projects — and has taken until now to be fully processed.
Due to the amount of national attention given to the research — together with the collaboration of more than a half-dozen local and state government agencies and other stakeholders — produced a general expectation that the grant would be approved, but without a letter of commitment, officials had been cautious about moving forward with the $4.5-million project.
“This does kind of remove any hurdles as far as construction,” said Leighton Fong, a Glendale Water & Power engineer involved with the project.
The letter of commitment means Glendale Water & Power — the lead agency overseeing the research — can begin getting reimbursed for project expenses, he said.
With a major funding hurdle out of the way, project engineers can now focus on finishing the design and construction of the two treatment demonstration facilities — one at the Glendale Water Treatment Plant, the other at a well along the San Fernando Road corridor where chromium 6 levels surpass the state threshold of 50 parts per billion.
Water officials have diluted concentrations of chromium 6, or hexavalent chromium — which has been shown to cause cancer in lab animals — from local wells by blending it with untainted water imported from the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, bringing the overall level down to just 3.5 parts per billion.
But chromium 6-contaminated groundwater in Burbank and North Hollywood continues to move southwest into Glendale, a migration that the state Environmental Protection Agency warns could significantly increase contamination levels here if no action is taken.
Tightening state water supplies has also made local groundwater production more important, especially to cities that depend heavily on imports, water officials said. Glendale imports about 70% of its water from the Metropolitan Water District.
“No one wants to lose this resource,” said Michael McGuire, vice president of Santa Monica-based Malcolm Pirnie, the lead environmental engineering and consulting firm for the treatment facilities.
McGuire’s firm is wrapping up an analysis of the reduction, coagulation and filtration system, which would use iron to change the physical state of chromium and remove it. A pilot system for that method — which would be built at the water treatment plant — is in the earlier stages of development than its counterpart, a weak-base anion exchange system that will use negatively charged atoms to attract the chromium from the water.
That system would be the first to be built using the state money after a modification to the design is finished, Fong said.
The cost effectiveness of the two treatment options will be studied during their demonstration phase to help determine which one will be incorporated into the city’s water filtration system.
The results will also be shared with other cities and water utilities that face similar contamination issues, water officials said.
JASON WELLS covers City Hall. He may be reached at (818) 637-3235 or by e-mail at jason.wells@latimes.com.
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