Water Pollution

Government bureaucrats want your water softener. The Culligan Man is fighting back. The company behind the renowned "Hey Culligan Man!" advertising campaign of the 1950s has launched a political and public relations offensive to kill a bill targeting its signature product. That proposal would allow regulators to ban conventional water softeners that discharge salt into municipal sewer lines.

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich is one of the main talking heads of Oscar-winning director Jessica Yu's "Last Call at the Oasis,"a new documentary sounding the alarm about an impending global water shortage from the producers of "An Inconvenient Truth" and "Food, Inc. "The film looks at diminishing water sources in Central California's agricultural belt and in Nevada's Lake Mead, which could affect L.A. if trends continue. Brockovich, an Agoura Hills resident who was portrayed by Julia Roberts in a 2000 eponymous biopic, has continued her work on behalf of communities with water pollution as the president of Brockovich Research & Consulting.

For years before the mid-1980s, groundwater in parts of Southern California was contaminated with toxic solvents, yet the federal body responsible for tracking this didn't investigate the potential health threat to people who were drinking contaminated tap water. A congressional committee is now investigating why that neglect occurred. Here's a closer look at what scientists know about the main solvents of concern and their health effects.

For years, residents living near Ballona Creek and environmentalists have complained of mysterious sheens of oil and grease in the western Los Angeles County waterway, often blaming industrial dumping, urban runoff or other man-made causes for the pollution. One cause that apparently never crossed their minds: the La Brea Tar Pits. It turns out the tourist attraction and preferred field trip destination of seemingly every grade schooler in the region has sent oily wastewater spilling into the highly polluted creek.

A sea of ancient water tainted by the Cold War is creeping deep under the volcanic peaks, dry lake beds and pinyon pine forests covering a vast tract of Nevada. Over 41 years, the federal government detonated 921 nuclear warheads underground at the Nevada Test Site, 75 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Each explosion deposited a toxic load of radioactivity into the ground and, in some cases, directly into aquifers. When testing ended in 1992, the Energy Department estimated that more than 300 million curies of radiation had been left behind, making the site one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the nation.

For years, residents living near Ballona Creek and environmentalists have complained of mysterious sheens of oil and grease in the western Los Angeles County waterway, often blaming industrial dumping, urban runoff or other man-made causes for the pollution. One cause that apparently never crossed their minds: the La Brea Tar Pits. It turns out the tourist attraction and preferred field trip destination of seemingly every grade schooler in the region has sent oily wastewater spilling into the highly polluted creek.

A state appeals court has ruled that Los Angeles and Ventura counties can enforce water-quality standards designed to protect the region's beaches from polluted runoff, regardless of the cost to local governments and contractors. The 4th District Court of Appeal on Monday reversed a 2008 ruling in favor of Arcadia, 20 other Los Angeles County cities and a building industry association, which sought to overturn the storm-water pollution regulations by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board because the agency did not consider their economic effect on construction projects.

Rep. Esteban Torres (D-La Puente) will conduct a community meeting on ground-water contamination in the San Gabriel Valley at 7 tonight at La Puente High School Theater, 15615 E. Nelson Ave. Torres said he has invited officials from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency and state and regional agencies to report on what they are doing about contaminants in ground water.

A group of residents sued 19 defense contractors as well as manufacturing and oil companies Thursday, alleging that for decades they allowed toxic substances to leak into the drinking water supply beneath Baldwin Park, causing cancer and other health problems. In the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, 23 people allege they were affected by contaminated ground water, and 23 others seek damages based on the deaths of nine relatives. Two plaintiffs make both claims.

Environmental Protection Agency officials said Tuesday that they are looking for additional San Fernando Valley industrial firms that may be responsible for ground water pollution. The EPA will continue to send to Valley firms questionnaires seeking information on current and past chemical use and disposal.

Authorities ordered a solar-panel manufacturing plant in eastern China to close after four days of protests by hundreds of villagers who have accused the facility of causing air and water pollution, Chinese media reported Monday. The decision is an indication of the growing power of environmental protesters to sway government policy in China. As many as 500 villagers participated in the protests near Haining, an industrial city of 640,000 in coastal Zhejiang province. The plant's operator, JinkoSolar, a New York Stock Exchange-listed company, issued a public apology Monday.

The California Environmental Protection Agency has issued the nation's first public health goal for hexavalent chromium, the cancer-causing heavy metal made infamous after activist Erin Brockovich sued in 1993 over contaminated groundwater in the Mojave Desert town of Hinkley, about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. At that time, the average hexavalent chromium level in Hinkley's water was 1.19 parts per billion (ppb). The new state goal was set Wednesday at 0.02 ppb, the level of the element that does not pose a significant health risk in drinking water, according to state officials.

A state appeals court has ruled that Los Angeles and Ventura counties can enforce water-quality standards designed to protect the region's beaches from polluted runoff, regardless of the cost to local governments and contractors. The 4th District Court of Appeal on Monday reversed a 2008 ruling in favor of Arcadia, 20 other Los Angeles County cities and a building industry association, which sought to overturn the storm-water pollution regulations by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board because the agency did not consider their economic effect on construction projects.

BP officials Tuesday told congressional representatives that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill could grow at a rate more than 10 times current estimates in a worst-case scenario — greatly enlarging the potential scope of the disaster. Most of the handful of congressional Democrats and Republicans who met with representatives from BP, Transocean Ltd. and Halliburton in a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill walked away unimpressed. A source who attended the meeting said that the companies' representatives had a "deer in headlights" look and that the tenor of the conversation was that the firms "are attempting to solve a problem which they have never had to solve before at this depth…at this scope of disaster.

After years of legal wrangling, the federal government agreed Wednesday to remove a fleet of mothballed military ships that has dropped tons of heavy metal pollution into a waterway northeast of San Francisco. As part of a settlement with environmental groups, the U.S. Maritime Administration said it would remove 52 obsolete and decaying vessels -- nicknamed the Ghost Fleet -- from the estuary between the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Five others have been removed since November.

The Los Angeles County Flood Control District faces a state fine of almost $275,000 for allegedly allowing bacterial pollution to flow into the harbor at Marina del Rey for more than two years, officials said Monday. The staff of the Los Angeles region of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a complaint against the district Feb. 18, recommending $274,896 in fines. The board, part of the California Environmental Protection Agency, cited 186 violations from 2007 to 2009 of the district's storm water permit, which was issued in accordance with federal and state clean-water standards.

A cattle ranch and its owner were ordered to pay $1 million for water pollution. Masami Ishida, 70, is accused of discharging manure waste water from feedlots and retaining ponds at Masami Cattle Ranch into local creeks. The creeks feed into the Sacramento River. Ishida was also sentenced to six months' home detention as part of one year's probation for violating the federal Clean Water Act, attorney John Vincent said.

Marine Corps officials said Friday that an Orange County Water District study showing extensive ground water pollution near and on the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station was "premature and unfortunate in that it drew conclusions and assigned responsibilities" without considering an extensive environmental report by the military. The military study, which led to the installation of 13 ground water monitoring wells and seven soil boring wells on and near the El Toro station, is scheduled to be delivered to the water district on April 17, military officials said Friday.

A sea of ancient water tainted by the Cold War is creeping deep under the volcanic peaks, dry lake beds and pinyon pine forests covering a vast tract of Nevada. Over 41 years, the federal government detonated 921 nuclear warheads underground at the Nevada Test Site, 75 miles northeast of Las Vegas. Each explosion deposited a toxic load of radioactivity into the ground and, in some cases, directly into aquifers. When testing ended in 1992, the Energy Department estimated that more than 300 million curies of radiation had been left behind, making the site one of the most radioactively contaminated places in the nation.

Blaming small-scale septic systems for causing much of the pollution in Malibu's watershed, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board will vote Thursday whether to ban the systems in a large portion of central and eastern Malibu. Under the proposed moratorium, no new septic systems would be permitted, and owners of existing systems would have to halt wastewater discharges within five years. Far from a mundane issue, the staff-recommended proposal has prompted heated debate and threats of legal action in Malibu, where almost all homes and businesses rely on septic systems.