Comment - 21686 - Isabella Escutia

Good morning, members of the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. My name is Isabella Escutia. I live in San Francisco, and I am a student at the University of San Francisco. I support the proposed health-protective concentration for the noncancer chromium in drinking water. Growing up, I moved around southern California for my whole life, settling in Jurupa Valley for high school and San Francisco for university. Living in Jurupa Valley, I was, unfortunately, subject to living near the Stringfellow Acid Pits (a superfund site), prevalent wildfires, and bad air quality produced by intense winds. All of these factors impacted my community health and still do. One thing I did not think I had to worry about in Jurupa Valley was the quality of my water. Little did I know that I should be looking into the cancerous concentrations of chromium (VI) that are flowing through our pipes. With the noncancerous concentrations being set to 0.02 ppb (San Francisco Water Power Sewer, 2020), our current limit of 10 ppb seems negligent (Clean Water Action, 2025). Our limit is 500 times larger than the safety limits that have proven to cause cancer. In Riverside, the chromium levels were found to be 1.69 ppb, which is 84.5 times higher than what is determined as a safe quality of drinking water (EWG, 2010). This is unacceptable, these rates are one of the highest in California for drinking water, leaving the low-income and disadvantaged community that I grew up in at risk. Not only do we have to worry about chromium (VI), but we also have to worry about the plethora of other chemicals contaminating our water supply due to the magnitude of industrial companies out there. This poses a threat to our environmental justice, low-income communities should not be a target with higher levels of chromium (VI) Now that I live in San Francisco, I have to worry about a similar contamination. Chromium (VI) has infiltrated groundwater reservoirs all over California; this hard metal is commonly found in sediment, which is soluble in water, leading to its spread(San Francisco Water Power Sewer, 2020). In San Francisco, the chromium levels were tested and found in the range of non-detectable to 31.6 ppb (San Francisco Water Power Sewer, 2020). This surpasses the limitation of 10 ppb we have set in California. The National Institute of Health was able to verify that the increased ingestion of chromium led to the growth of tumor sites via animal studies (National Institute of Health, 2024) and liver and kidney damage in humans (MOHS Workplace Health, 2023). With this information, we should be taking more steps to effectively lower these levels in our drinking water. This risk is evident when you consider that 53 out of 57 counties in California found chromium in their drinking water (Hinton, 2023). In northern California, residents in Monterey found 27 ppb of chromium in their wells (Hinton, 2023). Regardless of where I’ve moved in this state, I have and will be at risk of carcinogenic chromium (VI) concentrations. Decreasing chromium standards from 10 ppb to 5 ppb is necessary to ensure the risk of cancer decreases in California. These steps will pave the road for more stringent remediation methods. I urge you to not only lower the acceptable concentrations but also support scientific research that would aid in finding technologies that could better remove these chemicals from our water. These levels are concerning and should urge you to protect your residents. Thank you for the opportunity to speak for the community and help you make your decision. Reference List California State Water Resources Control Board. 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