SACRAMENTO — Two bills designed to protect California drinking water supplies from contamination by the residue of Cold War rockets and other military munitions were signed Monday by Gov. Gray Davis.
The legislation will make clear that regional water quality boards can order dischargers of the chemical perchlorate to provide clean water to replace polluted supplies and to keep track of current inventories of the rocket fuel ingredient.
Perchlorate, a remnant of the Cold War era of weapons development in the 1950s and early 1960s, is considered by scientists to be a serious threat to public health when its subsurface plumes find their way into wells and other groundwater supplies.
Although it has been discovered at various spots around the state where defense contractors once produced weapons, perchlorate contamination is an especially ugly problem in the San Bernardino County city of Rialto, which recently lost 40% of its water supply when two wells had to be closed. Voluntary water conservation programs were ordered.
"We think this is a good step in the right direction," Brad Baxter, director of the city's public works department, said of Davis' approval of two bills -- SB 1004 and AB 826 -- by Sen. Nell Soto (D-Pomona) and by Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara).
Davis said in a statement that, unless swiftly controlled, contamination by perchlorate "could make much of the state's water undrinkable." The chemical has been blamed for disrupting operations of the thyroid gland, which can result in developmental disabilities.
Perchlorate threats also have been reported at sites in the Simi and San Gabriel valleys, Rancho Cordova near Sacramento and in Colorado River sources, which serve much of Southern California.
The Soto bill would make clear that perchlorate dischargers are subject to current law, which requires waste dischargers to provide clean water to municipalities or private well companies in exchange for supplies they have contaminated.
Perchlorate dischargers, often military bases and abandoned defense plants, also would be required to immediately report to state emergency and clean-water officials the discharges of 10 or more pounds of the chemical into a water supply. In addition, operators of perchlorate facilities that have stored more than 500 pounds of the chemical since 1950 must report how much of it was stored and where and how, and disclose any documents indicating that potential leaks had been investigated.
