Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
California is experiencing the worst drought in its history, and the effects are being felt nationwide. Thus water issues have taken center stage in much of our reporting and the nation's.As the New York Times says, "Water has long been a precious resource in California, the subject of battles pitting farmer against city-dweller and northern communities against southern ones; books and movies have been made about its scarcity and plunder. Water is central to the state’s identity and economy, and a symbol of how wealth and ingenuity have tamed nature ..."As we continue through a fourth year of extreme drought conditions, you'll find all of our reporting on the related issues (and that of NPR and other member stations) in this centralized place.

Toxic Chemicals Found In Local Water

Eren Eris
/
Flickr Creative Commons

Two families of toxic industrial chemicals have shown up in the sources of water local utilities deliver to area households, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington DC-based organization.

 

California Water Service Group spokeswoman Yvonne Kingman said the company stopped using the well where the chemicals were detected in 2016, two years after the sample was taken. Kingman said the well in Oroville is only used for firefighting or when its system drawing water from the Feather River’s west branch is off-line.

 

The compounds, called PFOA and PFOS have been linked by the Environmental Protection Agency to kidney and testicular cancer, liver damage, thyroid problems, compromised immune systems and developmental damage to fetuses.

 

State water officials said the chemicals easily penetrate soils and reach ground water.

 

The EPA has set a lifetime health advisory limit of 70 parts per trillion in drinking water. Readings collected by utilities at the behest of state officials found levels at one CalWater well in Chico and another in Oroville at 168 percent and 642 percent of EPA’s limit respectively. The levels were detected before treatment.

 

The Environmental Working Group maintains that the federal limit is set far too high to protect public health.

 

“We do know they’re in the blood of nearly every single person tested in the United States because the CDC has been testing for a decade now.” Chief Scientist Dr. David Andrews.

 

PFOA and PFOS are used in Teflon, grease and stain resistant clothing, as well as packaging, firefighting foam and other products. Andrews, who called the proliferation of the chemicals a crisis, said it highlights a failure of the nation’s regulatory process of reacting to problems rather than assuring product safety prior to being approved for sale.

 

Levels below the EPA limit were also detected in source water used by the Friendly Acres Mobile Home Park in Red Bluff, Keefer Creek Estates Mutual, and one well each serving Redding and Anderson.