Yesterday while relaxing at home the movie “Erin Brockovich” was playing. Many know of her incredible story taking on California’s Pacific Gas and Electric for water contamination. Between 1952 and 1966, Pacific Gas and Electric used hexavalent chromium, a known human carcinogen to fight corrosion in the plant cooling tower. If hexavalent chromium doesn’t ring a bell, think chrome, the stuff that puts the shine on metal. The wastewater dissolved the hexavalent chromium from the cooling towers and was discharged to unlined ponds at the site. The water seeped into the local drinking water supply causing an unusually high rate of cancer for residents. Levels tested as high as .58 ppm, more than 10 times California’s current drinking water standard of .05 ppm for total chromium compounds. The national standard is 1 ppm.

We offer Chromium Hexavalent (#486614) reagent test strips for our Micro 7+ Advanced photometer system that tests levels 0.05 – 5 ppm.