Wildfires May Have Contaminated LA's Water

'Chemicals can't be killed. You have to physically remove them from the water'
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 17, 2025 9:10 AM CST
It Could Be a Long Time Before LA's Water Is Declared Safe
Search and rescue workers dig through the rubble left behind by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025.   (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Fire crews are making progress against the Los Angeles-area wildfires, but residents are facing fresh challenges including potentially contaminated drinking water. Utilities have issued "Do Not Use" or "Do Not Drink" notices in areas affected by the Palisades Fire and the Eaton Fire, and experts say it could be some time before tap water is declared safe, NBC News reports.

  • VOCs. Wildfires in urban areas can contaminate water with harmful chemicals known as volatile organic compounds —VOCs—from sources including melted plastic, the Washington Post reports. Experts say it could take weeks to determine the scale of contamination, and since VOCs are chemicals, not bacteria, boiling water does not remove the risk. "Chemicals can't be killed. You have to physically remove them from the water," says Andrew Whelton, an engineering professor at Purdue University who researches fire-related water contamination.

  • Cancer risk. Exposure to benzene and other VOCs can cause acute vomiting, an accelerated heart rate, and convulsions, among other symptoms. Long-term health risks include cancer, neurological damage, and damage to the reproductive system, the Post reports. "In terms of cancer risk, what we're really interested in is the cumulative amount that you're exposed to over your entire lifetime," Dr. Lynn Goldman, dean of the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, tells the AP. "And if a short-term exposure adds a lot to that, that is a real risk."
  • Fixing the issue. If contamination is found, it could take months to restore tap water in affected areas. Whelton tells NBC News that flushing the system can remove low levels of contamination, but pipes will have to be replaced if higher levels are found.

  • Loss of water pressure signals danger. Jackson Webster, an assistant professor of civil engineering at California State University, says there is "definitely some level of contamination in these damaged systems," but it is too early to tell how much. He says loss of water pressure, as happened in the Palisades area, causes contaminants to be sucked into the system.
  • Home testing "a waste of money." Whelton says that for now, expensive water testing kits are a waste of money, because they provide a one-time result that can't accurately determine if VOCs are present in the system. He says home testing should wait until water has been declared safe. After California's Camp Fire and the Maui fires, "we found residents were unknowingly using kits that were NOT capable of finding fire-related drinking water contamination," he says in a post on X. He says some people spent a lot of money "and were sad to learn their test results were useless."
(More California wildfires stories.)

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