Water Pollution California

Gov. George Deukmejian on Friday pronounced himself satisfied with efforts to restore and protect the Lake Tahoe Basin's fragile environment, even as one of his top deputies said the state was barely "scratching the surface" of what needs to be done.

A key legislator and health and environmental groups have accused state agriculture officials of failing to adequately enforce a law to halt pesticide seepage into ground water, the source of 40% of California's drinking water supply. Contrary to the law's intent, the Department of Food and Agriculture is not trying to prevent contamination but merely "to deal with contamination after it occurs," said the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Pesticides in runoff farm water may be a key factor in the sharp decline of striped bass in the Sacramento River, state scientists reported. Staff of the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board said in a report circulated among government agencies that they have detected levels of pesticides that are lethal or toxic to tiny animals in the striped bass food chain. The pesticides are carbofuran, ethyl parathion and malathion.

Yielding to complaints from water utilities, state health officials have agreed to more lenient drinking water standards for two suspected cancer-causing chemicals than they proposed last year. Instead of a limit of 2 parts per billion parts of water for perchloroethylene, the Department of Health Services will set the standard at 5 p.p.b., according to David Spath, senior sanitary engineer with the department's public water supply branch. Rather than limiting dibromochloropropane levels to .

Rejecting the advice of a committee of scientists, state Food and Agriculture Department Director Henry J. Voss said Monday that he will continue to permit the use of the controversial pesticide aldicarb, despite concerns that the chemical poses a threat to the state's underground water supplies.