Nearly two decades after residents of Hinkley, CA, first became aware there was a hazardous chemical in their water --contamination that they linked to a number of physical ailments--PG&E has all but admitted that it still has not contained the Chromium 6/Hexavalent Chromium plume as was required by the Lahontan Water Board. Today polluter delays and regulatory Inaction have now led to a much wider polluted area. Hexavalent chromium, which was added to California's Proposition 65 list in December 2008, is a known carcinogen and a reproductive toxicant.

PG&E was initially investigated for dumping 8,000,000 gallons of Hexavalent chromium that was used between 1952 and 1966 to fight corrosion in the cooling towers at a compressor station about 12 miles west of Barstow. At a meeting held at PG&E Sept 2, 1965 PG&E was informed by Betz Chemical, the company that manufactured the Chromium 6, to not to dump any more descaler into these wells as it was a known carcinogen. At this same meeting PG&E also produced there first plume map. The Hexavalent chromium plume traveled north from PG&E to Santa Fa railroad tracks. PG&E did not tell land owners of plume and allowed thousands to be poisoned as a result of their negligence.

After the contamination was broadly publicized by the $333 million settlement with Hinkley residents in 1996 inspired movie with Erin Brockovich, it is shocking to learn that the plume of pollutant has not only grown but has been reason for further out of court settlements between PG&E and residence of Hinkley. In the most resent PG&E reached an out of court settlement for 3.6 million with the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board. In that settlement half of the money is stated to go to a piped water system for the Hinkley School. The Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, which oversees the Hinkley area, issued a cleanup and abatement order in August 2008, instructing PG&E to stop the expansion of the underground chromium plume by Dec. 31 of that year.The most resent settlement was concerning Pacific Gas and Electric’s violation of their cleanup order requiring them to contain the plume of water contaminated by chromium 6, a cancer-causing metal, which has been rapidly increasing in size. Lauri Kemper, assistant executive officer of the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board has stated that In the last three months alone the plume has extended more than one mile.

As of April of this year, more and more residence have had well water testing completed by PG&E and the results are painfully staggering. Add to that now the clock is ticking with a life altering decision called fair by PG&E. Property owners have to choose from three solutions or offers of relief as they call them. These are the choices. #1 Whole Home Filtration, New deeper well, and finally Home Purchase Program, all with a deadline to accept one before the date of Aug. 31, 2012.

Meanwhile, Lisa Dernbach, the senior engineering geologist for the water board.has said in an article by Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle in November of 2010, "increased levels of chromium have recently been detected in about 12 domestic drinking water wells. That's in addition to the dozens of wells previously affected." Not only that, Dernbach said, "but chromium has also been found in what she called "the lower aquifer," an area of groundwater separated from the upper aquifer by a layer of clay.

Residents wonder is it just a matter of deeper domestic wells? Well according to Lisa Dembach's statement from 2010 the pollution originally affected only the upper aquifer, and a lot of the domestic wells were tapped into the lower aquifer because it was believed to be uncontaminated. Is it just us or is there a slight bit of flip flopping here, and therefore it would be obvious to the residents that a deeper well is not a viable solution.

Reports of sick and dying residents continue, including the deaths of three people who once lived in a house that PG&E has purchased and demolished - two died from cancer - but there is no direct evidence of a link between the reported health problems and chromium 6. It does beg one to want answers though.

Lahontan officials have not slapped PG&E with a notice of violation, a common enforcement tool. Why not? Well apparently "In this case the enforcement committee decided that a verbal enforcement action to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. was appropriate in part because PG&E was cooperative and working to develop a plan to address the violation, which they have since implemented," said Chuck Curtis, the supervising engineer for the water quality control board. Bob Doss, PG&E's principal engineer for gas transmission and distribution remediation, said the same article, that the chromium plume has been expanding and contracting for years, but is, for the most part, corralled. Really? He then continues to state that the trick now is to move forward with a PG&E action plan that was recently submitted to the Lahontan board. The proposal is to reduce chromium levels to naturally occurring background levels of less than 3.2 parts per billion.

A series of hydraulic and biological methods are being used, Doss said, including the injection of ethanol into the groundwater, a process that converts hexavalent chromium into trivalent chromium, which is not harmful. Also, PG&E is growing feed crops like alfalfa using contaminated water, a process that essentially filters out the chromium 6, at a utility-owned dairy. "The goal, quite simply put, is to continue to use agricultural treatment in the one area and expand that into other areas," Doss said. "It's a natural beneficial use that makes a lot of sense. It dilutes the plume."

Now back to the residents, the highest concentration of chromium found in resident's wells has been about 14 parts per billion, according to Dernbach. The state drinking water standard for chromium is 50 parts per billion. The most toxic area, at the source of the plume, has a concentration of 9,030 parts per billion of total chromium, Dernbach said. Well updated figures were given on July 27, 2011, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) established a public health goal (PHG) for chromium-6 (hexavalent chromium) of 0.02 micrograms per liter (µg/L). The PHG will contribute to CDPH's development of a primary drinking water standard (maximum contaminant level, MCL) that is specific for chromium-6.
That standard, if it eventually gets approved, would mean that virtually all of the well water in the Hinkley Valley is unsafe to drink.

The utility has announced both the Aug. 31 decision time date and that its expanded property purchase program will cease at the end of the year. Therefore, some 300 residents who have spent years – perhaps decades – drinking water laced with chromium 6, decision time is fast approaching for choosing either a newly pioneered whole house water replacement system or selling their home to Pacific Gas & Electric Co., which will bulldoze it. And for some added salt to the wound, the contractors Hinkley citizens are negotiating these trouble waters with are contracted by PG&E. Rest Assured they say, we are in place to guide and protect your interests. It can be assumed the deck is stacked against the people that have endured enough and are entitled to fair and well balanced settlements in place of polluted wells. The plume is still growing and California Law makers must take action to insure that not only are these residence compensated but also ensure other Californians are not put in this position to begin with. PG&E must be held responsible and liable.

It is a matter of right and wrong and as PG&E works toward lowering costs to increase profit by not giving the plume and Cr6 removal proper attention, We the residents of Hinkley, find a decrease in wealth as medical bills soar from the permeation of Cr6 into our daily life. And as that life goes, today for some each step is so painful and fraught with a daily search for relief through balanced and fair sharing of information and just representation. PG&E has violated our private property as well as our right to live and prosper. As the corporate monsters act in selfish ways destroying land and lives, it is our hope that others in similar situation to ours will band together and demand viable justice and relief. Please join us and give our once but small and timid voice, the ROAR of a lion! After all the clock is ticking and lives are in the balance.