Contaminated Drinking water with perchlorate!

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Cheri

Wednesday, January 16, 2002 2:01 PM

 

Press Release: Monday, July 16, 2001

Contact: Bill Walker, Environmental Working Group, (510) 444-0973

Teresa Schilling, Environmental Media Services, (415) 561-2325

 

Thyroid Toxin Taints Water Supplies for Millions in Calif. & Nationwide

Air Force, Defense Firms Lobby Against Standards for Rocket Fuel Waste

 

OAKLAND, Calif., July 16 - Sources of drinking water for more than 7 million

Californians and unknown millions of other Americans are contaminated with a

chemical that disrupts child development and may cause thyroid cancer, but is

unregulated by the state or federal government, according to an investigation

by Environmental Working Group (EWG).

 

Today EWG released " Rocket Science: Perchlorate and the Toxic Legacy of the

Cold War, " available at www.ewg.org Perchlorate, the explosive main

ingredient of missile and rocket fuel, has been detected in 58 California

public water systems and in water or soil in 17 other states.

 

Citing EWG's study, The Sacramento Bee reported in a front-page story July 14

that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates 20 million people in

California, Arizona and Nevada have some level of perchlorate, often

undetectable, in their drinking water supplies.

 

But only a fraction of the water supplies in California or elsewhere have been

tested, and the EPA believes perchlorate contaminates water wherever rocket

fuel or rockets were made or tested - 39 states in all. " Rocket Science " makes

public for the first time maps and databases of all known and suspected

perchlorate contamination nationwide.

 

" We know the water supplies of millions of Californians are contaminated with

perchlorate at potentially harmful levels, " said Bill Walker, EWG's California

director. " But that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of

untested wells and water systems across the country, and many Americans may be

consuming a toxin which is a health threat at very low doses, especially to

infants and children. "

 

Too much perchlorate can damage the thyroid gland, which controls growth,

development and metabolism. Fetuses, infants and children with thyroid damage

may suffer mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech, or deficits in

motor skills. At higher levels of exposure, perchlorate is known to cause

cancer.

 

Neither California nor the EPA has established any safety standards for

perchlorate in drinking water. The EPA is scheduled to begin nationwide water

sampling this year, but it will be years before there are enforceable state or

federal drinking water standards.

 

But it's unlikely that those standards will protect the public, particularly

children. EWG calculates that the EPA's latest proposed standard would leave

formula-fed infants exposed to between 7.5 and 2,000 times the safe level of

perchlorate in drinking water.

 

EWG's recommendations for a perchlorate standard that will protect children

were reviewed by Dr. Thomas Zoeller of the University of Massachusetts, an

external peer reviewer of the EPA's proposed perchlorate regulations. Zoeller

told The Bee that EWG " makes a scientifically valid case. " He agreed with

EWG's main finding: The EPA's risk assessment does not consider the

possibility that infants and fetuses may be more sensitive to reductions in

thyroid hormones caused by perchlorate contamination.

 

" Small, subtle changes in thyroid hormone levels in pregnant woman can

predispose their children to measureable and permanent reductions in IQ and to

Attention Deficit Disorder, " Zoeller said.

 

But concerted pressure to set a looser perchlorate standard is coming from a

powerful alliance of chemical companies, aerospace contractors and the U.S.

Air Force. In an unethical attempt to prove perchlorate is safe, the Air Force

is co-sponsoring tests in which human subjects are paid to swallow daily doses

of perchlorate much higher than the levels currently recommended by EPA or

California.

 

" In the name of national security the military created a widespread public

health threat. Now they're trying to block safety standards that would protect

people from that threat, " said Walker. " It's clearly not in the public

interest for the Air Force to be lobbying against EPA's efforts to set safety

standards. "

 

If standards are kept lax, the defense contractors responsible for perchlorate

contamination will save millions of dollars in cleanup costs. Some contractors

have already cut deals with the Air Force that will stick taxpayers with

almost 90 percent of the cleanup bill. With cleanup of heavily contaminated

sites estimated to take more than 200 years, the cost to taxpayers may reach

billions of dollars.

 

http://www.ewg.org/reports/rocketscience/

 

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