EPA reaches settlement over arsenic concentrations in drinking water

Arvin Community Services District (ACSD), which services Arvin, California, and the surrounding Kern County, will pay a $14,750 fine and bring its drinking water into compliance with the arsenic maximum containment level (MCL) after settling with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Tuesday.

ACSD provides drinking water for roughly 20,000 residents but has consistently had issues with arsenic concentrations since 2008. In October of that year, the EPA ordered the system to reduce arsenic levels to the acceptable 10 parts per billion (ppb) by Dec. 2010. That deadline was extended an additional four years, to Dec. 31, 2014, but monitoring showed that arsenic concentrations were still as high as 31 ppb that year.

As part of the settlement agreement, ACSD will drill two new groundwater wells, and if those have high levels of arsenic it will install a treatment system to reduce the contaminant to acceptable levels. Additionally, the system’s progress throughout its compliance efforts will be monitored by the EPA, through milestone updates and quarterly progress reports and meetings.

ACDS will also be providing residents with 650 gallons of drinking water per day via vending machines recently installed at its office, which will be made available 24 hours a day at no cost.

EPA testimony statements are available online at www.epa.gov.