Recommendation to receive and file a report from Long Beach Water Department regarding the excellent quality and safety of the drinking water in Long Beach and to assure the citizens of Long Beach that various factors that caused the lead contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan do not exist in our city.  (Citywide)
Okay. So item 16, Madam Clerk. Report from Water Commission and Water Department recommendation to receive and file a report from the Long Beach Water Department regarding the excellent quality and safety of the drinking water in Long Beach Citywide. Councilmember Durango. Thank you, Mayor. First of all, I want to thank you for indulging me last week, and I was very late in the evening and there was nobody here to hear this report. I thought that it would be appropriate to table it for a week so that we could have a bigger and broader audience and not only here present, but also on the on the tube. Over the last year, we've heard a lot of reports about what's been happening in Flint, Michigan. And there's have been several reports about other municipal municipalities across the country that may have similar issues in their infrastructure, all piping piping that is probably lined with lead and therefore having a potential another catastrophic situation as it happened in Flint, Michigan. During those reports, it came to my attention that there are over 2000 municipal water municipalities across the country and that many of them may be in danger of encountering a similar situation in Flint. So I asked the director, Chris Garner, if he would be amenable to coming to the city council and to present the the efforts that we have here locally to ensure that our water is safe and that we have taken measures to ensure that it remains that way. And so I hope that when we're done today, that our our council and our residents have a clear understanding as to where we stand in regard to our water quality, and also maybe give some additional information as to what we can do also ourselves to ensure that it stays that way. So I'll hand it over to our staff director, Chris Gardner. Thank you very much. As Councilmember Ranga mentioned, we had a discussion recently about the Flint, Michigan, tragedy. And what makes it even more of a tragedy is it could have been avoided with proper respect for the science of water treatment. So what we have done tonight is we brought I brought my water Einstein with me, my director of operations tight saying . And he will walk you through real briefly. On what happened in Flint, Michigan, and what went wrong, and then how in Long Beach we do it differently. And then give assurance to you and to. The residents of Long Beach that the drinking water in Long Beach is very safe. And he will explain to you in terms I can understand and hopefully the rest of you can understand such. Honorable Mayor and members of City Council. Thank you for inviting us down to provide a brief presentation on what's happening in Flint, as well as give you some explanation of what Long Beach Water Department is doing that is different from the city of Flint and provide some assurances on the water quality that we provide to our residents . So first and foremost, what is happening in Flint. Flint, as you have heard on the news, is experiencing lead contamination problem and the source of that lead, the primary source. The lead is the lead service line and that's the pipeline that goes from the city main to the house. A pipeline is made of pure lead. Other sources are lead that's been introduced to the system is from household plumbing fixtures. So there are in brass fixtures. There's also lead and there's also lead in some of the old solder of when you solder copper pipe. So what happened was in 2014, the city of Flint had decided to switch the water supply from Detroit water to the Flint River. When that happened, it caused a major shift in water chemistry, and that caused the water to become very aggressive and caused the the scale that protects the pipeline from leaching lead to become unstable. To compound the issue, the operations of the Flint Water Treatment Facility had decided not to implement corrosion control, which would help to restabilize that scale and prevent the lead from leaching from the led service line, as well as corroding the lead the brass fixtures within the household plumbing. So consequently, there was a lot of delays in appropriate action and ultimately resulted in the lead issue that you're hearing about in the news. So what is different from Long Beach, from Flint? Well, first and foremost, Long Beach does not use lead service lines. We use copper service lines. So that primary source of lead does not exist. There are some brass fixtures in homes, so that does provide a source of potential lead contamination. But Long Beach has been using its water supply for over 50 years. We're primarily groundwater. We're about 60% groundwater, and we're about 40% purchased water from Metropolitan. And that water is very stable. We've been using it for a long time, so we don't have that rapid change in water chemistry that caused the problem in Flint. At the same time, we do have an active corrosion control process where we work to add chemicals to the water to make sure that whatever scale that's on the pipeline remains relatively stable and that does not allow the water to corrode any fixtures. And then lastly, we've been monitoring for lead since 1992, and all the monitoring results reported to the state has been below the compliance detection limit. So from the monitoring, we know that we don't have a levee issue. So hopefully this provides you with some assurances that the water that we provide to the residents is safe to drink . With that concludes my short presentation. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'd be happy to answer any water quality questions you may have. Thank you for the report. So having that information, would it help residents to put like, say, a water filter on their faucets to clean the water to make sure it's even cleaner than what it is already? Or is it recommended? Do we need it or not? The water that is delivered to your home is perfectly safe to drink. Now, whether you decide to put a additional filtration device, it's a personal taste preference. You can do it. The only thing I would caution you is, for example, if you use a better filter, what it does is it removes the chlorine from the water, which is the upset, objectionable taste that some residents complain about, that chlorine is there for a reason. It prevents biological growth from reoccurring in the water. So when you remove it, you have to drink it right away or refrigerated. Do not leave it out. It could cause problems for you later on. You I was good at. That was going to be my next question. You did mention that you put some chemicals in our water to I guess, to make sure that it's clean as possible and it avoids, I guess, parasites from growing in there. What are the types of chemicals you put in there? Fluoride as an example. Equal fluoride in our water. Yes. We've been floating for a long time since the seventies. When you add caustic soda, which raises the and that's what helps keeps the scale stable in the pipeline system. We add a chemical disinfectant. It's a combination of ammonia and chlorine and what we call chlorine means. And that's what is the disinfectant that's in the water. It stays in the water and prevents the michael michael biological activity from going out of control. And another point you mentioned, you made mention the fact that you report, you test our water on a periodic basis. How often and you report those to a state agency and are those results available on the Internet or can we access those test results to make them available? Or is it something that we have to go to the State Department in order to get those results? So we collect about 55,000 samples a year to test for various contaminants that may be present in the water for the lead testing. We do it once every three years and then actually this is a year for lead testing. So we do over 100 samples and we actually in the the bill stuff, we had asked residents because of the sensitivity issue of Flint, we're offering additional testing to the residents if the residents want to volunteer. There is a limit to how many samples we could take and couldn't test the entire city. It would be too much of a cost, but we are adding that in terms of the water quality results. We do. We do report monthly the water order results to the State Water Resources Control Board. That is the governing agency that that regulates us. In terms of the results itself. We do publish an annual water quality reports that is available that used to be mailed out to every account on file. But in an effort to be more green, we have converted to electronic. So we do make it available on our website so you can get access to all of our quality monitoring data on our website. And if you do want a hard copy, you can contact the water department and we will provide you a hard copy. Excellent. One last question. These two had a long to guard program. We do. We still have the long current program. Wonderful. That's all I have. The Mayor. Thank you, Councilwoman Gonzalez. Thank you for the report. You know, we've been hearing so much on the news. And so I think also my my colleague, Councilman Roberto Arango, to bring this forward, sometimes we have to, you know, tackle the challenge head on and really learn a little bit more about this. So appreciate it very much. I don't have any other questions. I think you answered them all. But appreciate the the report. By Councilmember Ranga. I also want to thank both of you for being here this evening. I'm going to be partnering with the Sierra Club very soon. We're going to try to hold a a town hall meeting, if you will, workshop on water quality and what can be done so that the community can be better informed as to how we can best improve our water quality as far as that goes, but also on the conservation efforts that we can add as well in terms of preserving our water. So I want to thank you both for being here this evening, and thank you for your indulgence as well. And I know was late last last week, but early. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. And I just want to also thank you both. I mean, Mr. Gardner especially. And we had a chance to spend some time doing some lobbying on behalf of the water department over in in Washington. So I want to thank you for your work. Do you have anything that you wanted to add? Now, we we again, we appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and to the. Public about the water quality. And as I mentioned, if anybody has on the public, there has any question about their own water quality in their house, contact the Long Beach Water Department and we will do testing for that and. Give them some assurance. Thank you. Great. Thank you. And as always, keep continue to conserve. I mean, lawn pictures and a nice job. The residents have done a nice job through this last year of really conserving water. And we've got to continue that. There's a lot more work to do. So thank you. Thank you. Okay. There's a motion any second. Is there any public comment on this item? Please come forward. Mr. Mayor, city council members, a name is Ben Rockwell. I would like to thank the water department for giving us the reassurances that they've brought tonight. I feel that this is very much in line with what we need to hear. I would be saddened if we ever had any contamination problems such as happened in Flint with the number of lives that have been endangered, not only the children's lives for their mental capacities and others, but all those who are older and perhaps beginning stages of Alzheimer's. This is something that is very important to all of us. And I want to thank our water department for the reassurances and spite of the reinsurance that they have given us. I don't like the taste of chlorine and some of these other chemicals. So I do have water filters so that I can have my drinking water, my cooking water, such that I am getting rid of the chlorine and some of the other substances that could be injurious to my health. And thank you very much. Thank you. Peter Rosenwald, Honorable Mayor, members of the Council, assembled citizens a sometime in the 1980s or early 1990, and I believe the Water Department had a program where you could get a container and take your water in to the testing area. It will take it into the water department and and have it tested. I just remember this. I never did it. But I'm just curious. Does anyone remember that by any chance? And. What were they looking for at the time? Thank you. We still have the program. If a resident feels like there's a concern. You can call us up. We'll talk to you over the phone. Listen to what your complaint is, what your concern is. And if we feel there's a valid. Concern, we will go out to your house and we will collect a sample and test for you and give you the results. So let me go ahead. And Mr. Gardner. So if you wanted to want to finish your public comment and then we'll kind of get to public comment. Thank you, Mayor. This was something that the water department would give you a sample container and you would bring it in. So I'm glad that they have that. And I also I don't believe I usually would read the water insert and I don't believe seeing this in mentioned, maybe it's not mentioned because it would engender a lot of people calling the water department or asking for them to make an inspection. But anyhow, that's my comment. Thank you. Next speaker. Hi. My name's Ellie Gonzales. I as on file. I'm really glad that this item made it before you today. I think it's really important that we do an assessment on our water infrastructure. I want to speak not specifically about Flint, but the issues around Flint. So some of the issues that came up, it's not just about the water in the lead. It's also about communities being lied to for about a year, actually about two years. It's also about communities that still don't have access to clean water. Now, when we're talking about entire cities losing their water infrastructure, I want us to remember it's not just Flint. It's many of the communities that have dealt with fracking for the past ten years that have lost their access to clean water. And if you don't believe me, you can go ahead and ask some of these people. In fact, the mayor of a former mayor of the city of Denton, Texas, a Republican truck driving, you know, gas, gas loving guy. His city was so heavily fracked that his water was able to catch on fire. I'm sure you guys have seen some of the YouTube videos. And so he was out here in the city of Carson helping them promote their ban on fracking. So so their community doesn't have to deal with what he had to deal with. His kids got sick, his wife got cancer. You know, and these are very real things. These are things that already happen in our communities. So I want to just mention that communities do get lied to. And then the government does work with companies to say, oh, no, you don't know what you're talking about. You're not a scientist. You're you're you're you're not educated enough. That's what they told these people in Flint, Michigan. And I want us to think for a second, can that ever happen here? I want us to make no mistake about it. There is a grace upon this city. This is a wonderful city. But when we practice the same sort of practices or relationships with industry, we can also fall victim to the same sort of accidents or incidents which occur, which lead to governments then being involved in covering up their mistakes. So the company that that did the water testing for the residents of Flint that said, oh, no, you guys don't know what you're talking about. Your kids aren't getting sick. You that's an odor thing. That's a taste thing. That company is called Veolia, and they actually do testing here in the city of Long Beach, actually in Signal Hill. And they work with some of the drilling companies, again, right here in Signal Hill to help them produce water tests, the testing results that show that that the water is safe. They also Veolia has also done studies here for the communities in Watts near the Exide battery plants, where communities say that their water was contaminated. So I just want us to think that to just remember that when people like me come up to this council and say, hey, you guys, you should really take a look into fracking , since so many communities have already suffered water contamination, that maybe you don't want to be one of those elected officials that say, oh, no, you don't know what you're talking about. So I do just also want to make one other mention. The person who introduced this presentation, I've got nothing personal against the gentleman. He worked for the Oil and Gas Department for 25 years. He was just appointed because you guys had some beef with the other guy. Thank you. Okay. Any other public comment on this item? Seeing none. Members to go ancaster votes. Motion carries. Thank you. Next item, please. We're going to do item number seven.