COLUMBUS – City of Columbus utilities officials were quick to downplay a report from a national environmental group claiming that dangerous levels of the cancer-causing contaminant chromium-6 was present in the city’s drinking water.
The independent advocacy organization Environmental Working Group on Tuesday released its analysis of federal data from nationwide drinking water tests that shows chromium-6, also known as hexavalent chromium, was found in 75 percent of the samples tested nationwide. Those systems account for the drinking water supplies for more than 200 million people in all 50 states, the organization said.
The discovery of high levels of chromium-6 in the drinking water of a small California town was the basis of the film “Erin Brockovich.”
Columbus officials responded by pointing out that the levels of the compound in the city’s water supply was well below that considered safe by authorities in California, the only place where maximum levels of chromium-6 are mandated.
The report says the highest level of hexavalent chromium in the drinking water in Franklin County from 2013-15 was 0.35 parts per billion, approximately 3.5 percent of the maximum containment level of 10 ppb established in California.
“California set an arbitrary maximum contaminant level goal at 0.02 parts per billion and their maximum contaminant level at 10 ppb,” Department of Utilities spokesman John Ivanic said on his Facebook page. “They are standards that California has imposed for themselves and are not measurements of our water quality.”
Avg. chromium-6 levels in central Ohio drinking water
Franklin…………….0.20 ppb
Delaware………….0.28 ppb
Fairfield……………None
Knox…………………0.54 ppb
Licking………………0.13 ppb
Madison…………..N/A
Pickaway………….0.02 ppb
Union……………….0.25 ppb
–Source: Environmental Working Group/US EPA
Chromium-6 “is not yet regulated by the EPA so we are not required to report those numbers. However, we have proactively tested for hexavalent chromium,” said a post on the department’s Facebook page.
The EWG report indicated the average level of hexavalent chromium in the water samples tested from five cities in Franklin County was 0.203 ppb. The government sampled water from Columbus, Westerville, Reynoldsburg, Gahanna and Bexley.
The EWG, scientists and other advocates are pushing for federal regulation of chromium-6 based, a move opposed by the chemical industry.