American journalist, essayist, satirist, and cultural critic, Henry Louis Mencken noted in his In Defense Of Women
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
HL Mencken In Defense Of Women
Mencken was describing what is now called a moral panic, which an article in Psychology Today says is a “situation in which public fears and state interventions greatly exceed the objective threat posed to society by a particular individual or group who is/are claimed to be responsible for creating the threat in the first place.” Think Satanic Panic. Thus it is that we find ourselves addressing the hobgoblin of chromium-6; you know, the chemical that the movie Erin Brockovich made famous. Once again the California State Water Resources Control Board and the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment have tag teamed the bogeyman of cancer caused by chromium-6 to push through yet another lowering of the MCL (Maximum Contaminant Level).
Below my draft comment letter to the State Water Resources Control Board regarding their proposed changing of chromium-6 limits in drinking water. You are free to use it.
Also, I would love to have your feedback. I want to have an interesting letter that is easily digested. With something technical it is easy to get mired in jargon and esoteric concepts, yet I have to make it understandable. The Water Board’s members are not specialists.
Lawmakers cannot be experts in everything and your input is critical to having rules you can live with. They are primarily lay persons with no special background. If I have not made any points clear to you in this draft, those points will go past the board too.
Please leave comments.
Draft Letter to the California State Water Resources Control Board
Jeanine Townsend
Clerk to the Board
State Water Resources Control Board
PO Box 100
Sacramento, CA 95812-0100
Norman Benson
Water Treatment Operator #37828
Lower Lake, CA 95457
April 7, 2022
Comment Letter – Hexavalent Chromium Workshop
Hello, my name is Norm Benson. I am a licensed Water Treatment Operator. I contract my services to Crescent Bay Improvement Company in Lake County, which has 22 connections, all of those are homes. I am concerned about the proposed standard maximum contaminant level (MCL) for chromium-6.
Would anyone on the Water Board be afraid to put one drop of cola in a six-ounce tippy cup of water and then give that to a child to drink? I would not hesitate. Yet one drop of cola is more than 250 times above the safe level for caffeine. This safe level is known as the Reference Dose (RfD) . Interestingly, caffeine and chromium-6 have nearly identical RfDs, and thus nearly identical toxicities.
According to one research paper about toxicity published in the Journal of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, “[Caffeine’s] final RfD would be 0.0025 mg/kg-day, a very small dose in the same range as RfDs for known toxicants such as hexavalent chromium and potassium cyanide. For a 10-kg child, this dose is the quantity of caffeine in 1/50th of a milliliter (mL) of cola (based on the content of Coca-Cola, 35 mg per 12 fl oz).”
So the RfD for a 20-pound child for caffeine is about one-half of a drop of cola. Is it the Water Board’s contention that one-half or one drop of cola per day for a toddler is dangerous?
Paracelsus, credited as the Father of Toxicology said, “What is there that is not poison? All things are poison and nothing is without poison. Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison.” Or to put it slightly differently, every toxic substance you can name, no matter how scary, has a safe level; and every substance you can name, no matter how natural or benign, even water, has a toxic level.
In 1991, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency raised the federal MCL for chromium-6 from 50 µg/L to 100 µg/L, which is still magnitudes greater than its RfD. Regulatory agencies do not loosen regulations if there is evidence of potential harm. What evidence of harm does the Water Board possess to further ratchet down the MCL for chromium-6?
The State Water Resources Control Board uses the fig leaf of the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) public health goal as its raison d’être for its MCL proposals. To an outsider, it all seems to use a “less is better” model as a heuristic guideline for safety. While this can be a useful rule of thumb, it is not scientific and can lead to unnecessary burdens, especially when we are speaking of MCLs far below the RfD.
And while the Board may well point out that chromium-6 has no use in the body, this is not exactly true, since chromium-6 is ingested and changed to chromium-3 by the body’s functions. chromium-3, is an essential mineral that the body needs. It is involved in the breakdown and absorption of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, and enhances the action of the hormone insulin. And according to a report by the National Research Council, “In its hexavalent state (as chromic oxide, chromate, or dichromate), chromium is a strong oxidizing agent and readily reacts with organic matter in acidic solution, leading to reduction to the trivalent form ” aka chromium-3.
Chromium-6, is a natural substance and can be found in rocks, plants, soil and volcanic dust. This means it can be found naturally in water. The question the Water Board then must answer is “When is the amount of chromium-6 safe for all to use?” If money were no object, then the Water Board’s answer might be to use the “less is best” rule-of-thumb and say “zero.”
But my friends, neighbors, and I live in a world where we must judge the cost of something against benefit to be derived. Regulations are a de facto tax on companies and the people they serve. Completing forms, testing, and labs, all take time and money. In a 2008 report, the Small Business Administration calculated the annual cost of federal regulations in the United States at $1.75 trillion. “Had every U.S. household paid an equal share of the federal regulatory burden, each would have owed $15,586 in 2008.” State, regional, and local regulations then pile on more costs per household. Additional regulation hits our mutual water company harder since we do not have as many people to bear the cost. My neighbors, who are also my bosses, want regulations that make sense. And they certainly do not want their money spent on something whose cost will exceed its benefit. The Water Board needs to prove this regulation is absolutely necessary for safety and not a speculative whim.
The Water Board’s proposed actions prompt me to ask some pointed, but necessary, questions.
- How many lives were saved, or illnesses prevented, by California’s requirement of a Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) lower than the US EPA’s MCL?
- How many liters of water would a 70-kilogram (154 pound) person need to drink to reach the RfD for chromium-6 at 100 μg/L, 50 μg/L to 25 μg/L, 15 μg/L, 10 μg/L or 1 μg/L? And, would that person have water toxicity before reaching the RfD for chromium-6 at any or all of these levels?
- What is the cost of no change of California’s chromium-6 MCL?
- How many cancers will be prevented if the Water Board’s Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) is adopted?
- How many years of life will be extended for California’s population if the Water Board’s MCL is lowered from its current 50 μg/L to 25 μg/L, 15 μg/L, 10 μg/L or 1 μg/L?
- If a community water system is above California’s current MCL but below the USEPA MCL, how many cancers or excess deaths occur per capita?
- It is my understanding that the standard metric for assessing the benefits of risk and proposed environmental regulations tradeoff between money and small risks of death is the ‘value of statistical life’ (VSL). Perhaps I missed its use in the White Paper? Why was VSL not employed?
- Since California already has tighter standards than the EPA and yet people opt to buy bottled water which use the EPA standard, why is their personal choice of concern to the Water Board?
- To see that the Water Board’s MCL is effective, how will the Water Board track deaths, illnesses, and cancer cases that were prevented due its (currently proposed) chromium-6 MCL in drinking water?
In conclusion, I and my customers want more than unmoored speculation from the Water Board and its staff. Science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural and social world using a systematic, evidence-based methodology. Science requires observation and measurement of predictions. ‘I believe in science’ is a statement of belief. Belief is the realm of religion; science inhabits that which can be observed and measured. Show us the science behind your reasoning for making this change.
I thank the Water Board for taking my statement.
Norman J. Benson, Licensed Water Treatment Operator
Lower Lake, CA
Nullius in Verba 