Based on the latest action of a regional unit of the California Regional Water Quality Control Board, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. (PG&E) needs to come up with a permanent solution to the Southern California high desert town of Hinkley’s contaminated local water supplies resulting from PG&E’s misuse of highly toxic hexavalent chromium dating back to the 1950s (see Daily GPI, Nov. 16, 2010).

In a filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, PG&E alluded to action Oct. 11 by the Lahontan Region of the statewide water quality control board. It said the anticipated work by the utility would require costs substantially higher than a previous $54 million estimate.

“The water board issued an amended cleanup and abatement order to require [PG&E] to provide an interim and permanent replacement water system for all properties served by ‘impacted’ domestic and community wells located near the underground plume of hexavalent chromium,” the utility holding company said in its SEC filing. “The order defines ‘impacted wells’ to include wells that have levels of hexavalent chromium above the naturally occurring background level in that area of 3.1 parts per billion (ppb).”

PG&E said the water board’s order requires the San Francisco-based combination utility to propose a method to perform an initial and quarterly evaluation of every domestic and community well in the affected area to determine if detectable levels of hexavalent chromium between the background level and the public health goal of 0.02 ppb represent background conditions, or are more likely than not, partially or completely, caused by the utility’s discharge of waste.

The agency also ordered PG&E to propose a way to test every well in the area four times a year to determine whether any chromium 6 levels detected were caused by the utility’s discharge of waste, PG&E said in its report filed to the SEC.

PG&E said it set aside $54 million in June to cover the costs of handling the contaminated groundwater in Hinkley, but the water agency’s new order and other requirements “will result in a material increase” in the cost. The utility won’t be able to recover the costs from its customers, which means that shareholders will foot the bill, the company said.

The groundwater problem in Hinkley was made famous by the film Erin Brockovich.

In September this year the PG&E utility submitted additional information to the water board about potential final remediation measures, according to the SEC submittal. One of these measures involves using groundwater that has been pumped from extraction wells to irrigate agricultural land. The irrigation causes a chemical process to occur by which the hexavalent chromium is reduced to trivalent chromium, a nontoxic form of chromium, PG&E said in its SEC document.

In an order issued last Sept. 23, the water board determined that the use of this agricultural method as a final remediation measure for areas where hexavalent chromium levels exceed the California drinking water standard of 50 ppb is subject to waste discharge permit requirements. The board said it anticipated that it will consider certification of the final environmental impact report (EIR) and the adoption of the general permit establishing the applicable waste discharge requirements in July next year.

The water board has indicated that it anticipated releasing a preliminary draft of the EIR for discussion in late 2011. The utility expects that it will incur additional costs to comply with the waste discharge permit requirements to be established by the Water Board.

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