Lahontan-PG&E sign agreement to clean up toxic SoCal water
By Katie Lucia, Daily Press
HINKLEY — The regional water board signed a $3.6 million agreement with Pacific Gas & Electric on Wednesday night, dedicating half of that money to build a new water filtration system at the Hinkley School.
The settlement was concerning PG&E’s violation of their cleanup order requiring them to contain the rapidly growing plume of water that’s contaminated by chromium 6, a cancer-causing metal, said Lauri Kemper, assistant executive officer of the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board.
PG&E pushed to have as much of that settlement money given to the community as possible, according to company spokesman Jeff Smith. They decided on a water system for the school after community members voiced concerns about the facility’s quality of water. Currently PG&E supplies bottled water to the school to address those concerns.
“It’s good to see the school got (that money) so they can put a new water system up there and take care of the kids,” said Hinkley resident Jim Dodd, who serves on the community advisory committee. “It’s just nice to see something getting done.”
Barstow Unified School District Interim Superintendent Jeff Malan said the district was excited about the news and looked forward to working with PG&E and the water board.
