California Water Reservoirs Contain High Levels of Carcinogenic Bromate
Two of the reservoirs supplying the city of Los Angeles with potable water were shut down when an independent laboratory test revealed them to be contaminated with high levels of the carcinogen bromate.
An independent commercial customer conducted laboratory tests on the content of water from the Silver Lake and Elysian reservoirs in October, discovering bromate levels of 68 and 106 parts per billion, respectively.
The maximum average bromate exposure allowed by law is 10 parts per billion over a year.
Silverlake Reservoir was one of them; it was emptied out, refilled, and now has those plastic balls on top of it to shade the water.
Here's the LA Times story about the shade balls: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-balls10-2008jun10,0,5878575.story
But what about those shade balls - could be a problem themselves if they leach chemicals into the water. This blogger says they have only been tested at about 73 degrees - not hot enough for the temps we get down here. http://donnabarstow.com/park_blog/2008/06/11/uh-oh-the-dwp-bird-balls-arent-good-enough-to-drink/
Thanks for the information. You have a lot of good information and a handful of interesting links. I wonder why you never post anything on WaterSISWEB. That would be really cool. You can at least post links to your own blog. I read your blog and you have lots of good thing to share with others.
We can do much better if all of us contribute to the content and vote for links. If people knew this is an old information, they would never vote positive for it and this would never make it to the top page.
I hope we see your posts on WaterSISWEB. Keep up the good work in Aquafornia.