State and federal investigators have known for more than 20 years that chromium 6, made famous in the movie Erin Brockovich, was present in groundwater under the sprawling San Fernando Valley in Southern California.

A number of companies, including Lockheed Martin Corp., have been implicated in chromium contamination, which can cause cancer and other medical problems. Lockheed paid $60 million to settle claims with 1,300 residents that an aircraft manufacturing plant it once operated exposed them to the chemical.

The Walt Disney Company fended of lawsuits in 2009 and 2010 by Burbank residents, who claimed the company dumped contaminated wastewater near the Los Angeles River.  

But the company came under scrutiny again this week when a consultant hired by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) listed Disney property as a potential source of the odorless, tasteless heavy metal.

Regulators are focusing on an antiquated air conditioning system that hasn’t been used since 1993, but Disney has denied using any chromium compounds in the system or cooling towers that replaced it.

Valley residents have agitated for years that a study of chromium contamination in the Valley led by the EPA be accelerated. Congressman Adam Schiff, who represents Burbank, complained in March that the slow pace of investigation was “unconscionable” and in a letter to the agency wrote that it “must stop wasting time and release their final analysis of chromium 6 in drinking water.”

Schiff’s comments came a month after the EPA announced it would dig 30 wells in the Glendale-Burbank area to monitor chromium 6 and help determine what companies might be contributing to the contamination.

The EPA has announced a 2014 target date for completion of its studies that could result in a federal standard for how much chromium 6 should be allowed in drinking water. California may be in the final stages of setting its own limits, although the state has been doing some dithering of its own. A state law passed a decade ago required that standards be set by 2004.

The California EPA finally suggested a standard of .02 parts per billion (ppb) in 2011, but it is up to the Department of Public Health to set the actual limit. A .02 standard would be a significant improvement over levels found in some California cities by the Environmental Working Group in a 2010 study. Chromium 6 was found in 31 cities, including Riverside (1.69 ppb) and San Jose (1.34 ppb), both of which made the top 5 in the United States.     

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

Chromium 6 Suspected at Disney Studios (by Richard Verrier and Chip Jacobs, Los Angeles Times)

Schiff Pushes EPA to Release Information on Chromium 6 Contamination (by Brittany Levine, Glendale News-Press)

EPA to Test SFV Groundwater for Cancer-causing Toxin (KTLA)

Lawsuit Claims One-Third of California Drinking Water Contaminated with Cancer-Causing Chemical (by Ken Broder, AllGov)