Today the Huffington Post reported that a few environmental groups are suing the California Department of Public Health for failing to address concerns over the presence of chromium-6, the chemical made notorious by the real-life activist turned movie-subject Erin Brockovich.
The story illustrates the delayed nature of water pollutant standards and enforcement. First, the question of whether the pollutant was carcinogenic in water needed to be answered, and once it was determined to be dangerous, the EPA set a "public health goal" of 0.02 ppb in water, but this level is not an enforced federal standard. It was left to the state of California to develop a statewide standard as close to the recommendation as possible. Environmental groups are suing after tests in various sites in southern California revealed higher levels than the EPA goal.
Developing standards and criteria for water quality can often take many years. Once those standards and criteria are developed, public health and water quality divisions are still obligated to review and adapt them when new scientific information becomes available. Actually arriving at the next step of mitigating pollution levels and enforcing whatever technological or BMP solutions are needed is obviously also incredibly time consuming and often cost-intensive.
It could be years before the mitigation efforts are in place to bring down levels of chromium-6 to acceptable levels.
It remains to be seen whether the litigation approach will speed the process.
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