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Public Works Agency <br />www.santa-ana.org/pw <br />Item # 23 <br />City of Santa Ana <br />20 Civic Center Plaza, Santa Ana, CA 92701 <br /> Staff Report <br />October 18, 2022 <br />TOPIC: Report on Water Quality Relative to Public Health Goals <br />AGENDA TITLE <br />Public Hearing – Report on Water Quality Relative to Public Health Goals <br />RECOMMENDED ACTION <br />Receive and file the Report on Water Quality Relative to Public Health Goals. <br />DISCUSSION <br />The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard <br />Assessment establishes Public Health Goals (PHGs) for drinking water contaminants. <br />The PHGs are guidelines, not requirements, for any public water system. PHGs are <br />frequently much lower than the maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) established by the <br />United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). Under provisions of the <br />California Health and Safety Code, the City is required to prepare a special report every <br />three years identifying water quality measurements that have exceeded PHGs (Exhibit <br />1). <br />For the years of 2019, 2020, and 2021, the report depicts that Santa Ana’s drinking water <br />continues to meet all State of California, Department of Health Services, and USEPA <br />drinking water standards set to protect public health. The City’s drinking water consists of <br />naturally-occurring arsenic, radium, uranium, gross alpha particle activity, and gross beta <br />particle activity, as well as bromate and perchlorate. The report provides estimated costs <br />for using the best available technologies for treatment of these contaminants and <br />intended actions by the City to reduce the concentration of the contaminants. No further <br />treatment programs are planned at this time due to the extraordinary capital and <br />maintenance costs that would be required to construct and operate these treatment <br />systems. The report indicates that using the best available treatment options, ion <br />exchange and reverse osmosis, may remove all the contaminants detected above the <br />PHGs but would cost between $10,200,000 and $80,000,000 per year. <br />State law specifies that a public hearing for the purpose of accepting and responding to <br />public comments on the report be held. This public hearing meets the legal requirement.