1 STAFF REPORT
DAT
E: July 29, 2025
T
O: Justin Hess, City Manager
F
ROM: Mandip Samra, General Manager, Burbank Water and Power VIA: Richard Wilson, Assistant General Manager, Water Systems BY: Javier Martinez, Manager Water Production and Operations Nareh Ghevondian, Water Quality Manager
S
UBJECT: Review of the Public Health Goals Report for Calendar Years 2022, 2023, and 2024
RE
COMMENDATION
Review and accept the Public Health Goals Report for Calendar Years 2022, 2023, and 2024 (Report).
BACKG
ROUND
The Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) was passed by the United States Congress in 1974 to ensure safe drinking water for the public. The Act grants the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the authority to set national standards for drinking water quality and oversee water suppliers in their implementation of these standards. Under the State of California’s Calderon-Sher Safe Drinking Water Act of 1996, public water systems with more than 10,000 service connections in California are required to prepare a Public Health Goals (PHGs) report every three years. PHGs are recommended goals that are determined by California’s Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) and represent the concentration of a contaminant in drinking water below the enforceable mandatory maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for which there is no significant health risk to the public if consumed for an entire lifetime. An MCL is the legal threshold limit on the amount of a contaminant that is allowed in public drinking water systems under the SDWA.
A P
HG is not a regulatory requirement and does not consider the economic impact and/or the available technology to measure or attain those levels. A PHG is a goal for drinking
WATER AND
POWER
Nareh Ghevondian
2 water that California’s public suppliers and regulators should strive to meet if it is feasible to do so.
The purpose of the Report on Public Health Goals (PHG Report) is to identify any drinking water contaminants that exceed their respective PHG . This information is also summarized in the Burbank Water and Power (BWP) Currents, “Annual Water Quality Report,” which was mailed to all customers in July of 2023, 2024, and 2025 as required by law. In addition, the California Health and Safety Code (HSC) requires such public water systems to hold a public hearing for the purpose of accepting and responding to public comment on the PHG Report. (HSC § 116470(c).
DISCUSSION
HSC § 116470(b) requires a “brief written report ” related to certain contaminant levels and the costs to remove the contaminant. The PHG Report (Attachment 2) serves as that report. In summary, there were no exceedances of the legal limits for Burbank’s drinking water.
As previously stated, compliance with a PHG is a goal and not a regulatory requirement.
Water purveyors must identify any drinking water contaminants that exceed a PHG and identify contaminants that exceed the applicable EPA maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) for which a PHG has not been set (MCLGs are the federal equivalent to California’s PHGs). The OEHHA identified 95 contaminants and assigned a PHG for each. Of those, t here are six in BWP’s potable water that exceeded either a PHG or MCLG:
o Bromate;
o Gross alpha particle activity;
o Gross beta particle activity;
o Hexavalent chromium;
o Total Coliforms; and
o Uranium
Based on the PHG Report, the water supply for the City of Burbank complies with all of the health- based drinking water standards and maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) required by state and federal regulatory agencies. As a result, no additional action is required under § 116470(b)(6). Detailed information regarding the detections noted above is summarized in tabular form (Attachment 1).
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW
This activity has no potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment, and as such, is not a “project” subject to the requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) 14 Cal. Code Regs § 15378 because it is a report and public hearing 3 compliance requirement, with no additional proposed action resulting from the information provided.
FISCAL IMPACT
There is no fiscal impact associated with reviewing the PHG Report for calendar years 2022, 2023, and 2024 . No programs are proposed for reducing the above PHG/MCLG exceedances since all contaminant test results were less than their respective MCLs.
CONCLUSION
The Report satisfies the requirements of the HSC. Additional costly treatment processes would be required in order to reduce contaminant levels identified in this report to below their respective PHG or MCLG. The contaminant levels are already significantly below the legally enforceable limits. The health protection benefits of these further hypothetical reductions are not clear and may not be quantifiable. Therefore, no additional action is proposed.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1 – Report Summary Table
Attachment 2 – Report on Public Health Goals, Burbank Water System Correspondences