EPA Might Not Act To Limit Rocket Fuel in Drinking Water
WASHINGTON - An EPA official said Tuesday there’s a “distinct possibility” the agency won’t take action to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has contaminated public water supplies around the country.
Democratic senators called that unacceptable. They argued that states and local communities shouldn’t have to bear the expense of cleansing their drinking water of perchlorate, which has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states — or the risk of not doing so.
The toxin interferes with thyroid function and poses developmental health risks, particularly to fetuses.
Benjamin Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the Environmental Protection Agency, told a Senate hearing that EPA is aware that perchlorate is widespread and poses health risks.
But he said that after years of study, EPA has yet to determine whether regulating perchlorate in drinking water would do much good.
“Is there a meaningful opportunity to reduce risk if we issue a new national regulation on perchlorate? We’ve been spending a lot of time on that, Madam Chairman,” Grumbles told Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
“I understand your frustration in how long the process is taking but we believe it’s important to do the work,” Grumbles said, promising a decision by the end of the year.
“EPA is trying to shunt the scientists to the back, put the DOD contractors to the front,” Boxer chided. “We want to see action by the scientists. We want to see a standard set.”
Grumbles told Boxer it was possible that instead of a regulation, EPA would issue a public health advisory, which would simply provide information. After the hearing he told reporters that a decision to regulate perchlorate was also still on the table.
Most perchlorate contamination resulted from Defense Department activities. The Pentagon could face huge cleanup costs if EPA sets a national drinking water standard for the contaminant, and DOD has tussled with EPA over the issue, according to a report last week by congressional investigators.
Perchlorate is particularly widespread in California and the Southwest, where it’s been found in groundwater and in the Colorado River, a drinking water source for 20 million people. It’s also been found in lettuce and other foods. Grumbles said that in determining whether drinking water needs to be regulated, EPA is analyzing results of a Food and Drug Administration study from January that found perchlorate in 74 percent of the 285 foods studied, and found that 81 percent of perchlorate intake by infants comes from baby foods and dairy foods.
The dispute over the federal government’s response has been long-standing. The EPA in 2005 issued a safety standard for the chemical of 24.5 parts per billion which was criticized as “not protective” by EPA’s own Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee. The safety standard indicates what EPA considers a safe exposure level and guides Superfund cleanups, but the agency still didn’t move forward with a drinking water standard.
In absence of that, states acted on their own. In 2007, California adopted a drinking water standard of 6 parts per billion. Massachusetts has set a drinking water standard of 2 parts per billion.
Boxer has introduced legislation that she plans to bring to a committee vote in June that would require EPA to set a drinking water standard. Committee Republicans said Congress should stand back and let the EPA finish its work.
Environmental Protection Agency: http://www.epa.gov
© 2008 Associated Press
Perchlorate is one of many chemicals that contaminate aquifers (underground water tables) wherever the military occupied an airport or maintained an air base from World War II to present. Standard operating procedure was to dump solvents and other chemicals at the edge of the runway or behind the hangers.
I worked for a company thirty years ago that was monitoring aquifers contaminated by World War II miltary operations at the local airports and was trying to decontaminate aquifers. The last I heard they had still not found a way to decontaminate.
Is the high cost of cleaning up this contamination considered part of “defense” cost or does it get lost in other cataegories ???
This is what is wrong with us. Our elected drink Scotch and water.
So the message from the government agency meant to guard you environmental safety is: We know it’s dangerous. We know there is no way to decontaminate the water. We are going to do nothing to stop further contamination. We know that future generations of American children will be deformed and crippled, with compromised immune systems.
But we will do nothing to interfere with the companies making and using the toxic chemicals from amassing greater profits as mandated by Corporate law, building weapons of war that will be used on other innocent people in acts of war the US government will carry out so seize needed resources including oil and hopefully uncontaminated water.
Does that about sum it up?
In any other part of the world, where the people by way of the government manage the health-care system, the damage caused by this sort of thing would be considered a “cost” to society. However, in a world of private for-profit medical care, the damage done can only be seen by the government as good for business and tax revenues.
It ain’t ‘rocket-science’ — they WANT these ‘accidental-threats’…
“However, in a world of private for-profit medical care, the damage done can only be seen by the government as good for business and tax revenues.”
Exactly…
The EPA is a joke now, Bush and Cheney are the EPA.
Look what just happened to the EPAs head of the Mid-West region. She was forced to resign because she was justifibly giving Dow Chemical a hard time in Midland, Michigan.
Let’s set up for a tidal shift on November fourth.
Neither NASA nor the U.S. Air Force is immune from the country’s environmental needs. They will either find a way to get the chlorine out of their rocket boosters or else they’ll find a way to go without a few launches. Hand-waving around “national security” won’t work if the Air Force is killing more American lives than they are saving.
PaulK May 7th, 2008 1:05 pm
~~ Hand-waving around “national security” won’t work if the Air Force is killing more American lives than they are saving. ~~
Huh?
Properly named, “National Security” would be “Corporate Profits Security.”
Deaths, mutations, crippling diseases are all just part of the “collateral damage” that we don’t count, both at home and abroad, in the endless pursuit of turning millions into billions.
Remember, with these guys the motto is, “He who dies with the most toys wins.” They don’t fear death, just dying as number 2. There is no human, animal, tree or plant that will be allowed to stand in the way of greater profit.
Congress accepts that, the unitary executive mandates that, and the judiciary backs that. The military enforces that around the world.
We the People are just fodder. Our needs don’t even enter the equation.
Wouldn’t it be better to shut down the EPA rather than pretend they do anything useful at all other than provide another facade for the corporate destruction of our environment.
It would be better to shut down the entire Congress and start over.
And while we’re at it, that Pentagon building would make a swell university with free admission, books, room and board for students with scholarships, based upon actual ability and intelligence. The personnel necessary to conduct the Pentagon’s business we really require, could be moved to a ten room office building.
I wish I was King for a year.
Hummm…that should mix well with the prozac, birthcontrol pills, chlorine, and floridation…
oh I forgot the genetically modidified stuff they put in toothpaste..trilosec or something like that…
Install a Reverse Osmosis machine in your house. The water is also contaminated with prescriptopn drugs which are flushed down the toilet by the ton then work their merry way into the underground water system.
The rivers and lakes are contaminated with Phosphates and the like from garden lovers who are unaware or don’t care.
How do we find out more information on just what sites are contaminated and which water supplies are affected? I live in California. How can I find out if my water is affected? And what about food? How do I find out if the organic, local milk I drink is contaminated or not. I don’t want to live in fear without first having all the information. Then I can take the best steps I know to protect myself. I cannot assume that ALL the water, All the lettuce and ALL the milk in California is contaminated.
You can buy a kit to test your water or go to Sears they will give you a bottle which you return to them with a water sample.
You can buy beef from Montana farms which is guarenteed free of hormones Etc.
Grow your own Veg.
Have the milk tested by a chemist.
Montana Ranch is the source of good beef.
Hay isn’t America great
Why not move to Canada? Where the Harper Gov in the Toronto Star ( Canadas largest paper) reported they lost the info and where abouts on 41,000 illegal immigrants of that 22,000 that had deportation notices. I guess that was the price to get that Canadian Women out of a Mexican jail.
I am not kidding folks get the hell out of America it isn’t getting better by the looks of things
I love the picture! So, CD editors, what do we have more of: space shuttles or sidewinder missles? uh-huh…
At least people are still testing for pollutants, and we are still hearing about them….
Yes ~AGAVE~ you would indeed be quite safe to assume that. In fact you should.
Another lost city; another extinct civilization; when will we ever learn? I recycle bottlecaps, but I can’t compete with this kind of ignorance.
Look folks, the Federal government is no longer your friend. In fact, yes, the gummint is actively harming you by “pimping” us consumer-citizen-hos off as commodities to the evil corporations who want to make money even at the cost of our health and our lives. We are being poisoned in many ways in the air, water and food we consume. The US STILL (last time I checked, about 3 yrs ago) has not adopted strict rules for mad cow disease prevention. Cattle waste including brains / spinal cords are fed to chickens. The collected scrapings of the chicken house floor (including spilled and “recycled” food) are used to feed cows. A clear path. I remember reading about 5 years ago that Europeans tested more cattle in one day than the US tested in an entire year. Why? So Archer-Daniels-Midland and Monsanto can make money for the wealthy. The EPA is essentially a staunch defender of the right to pollute and poison us, the citizens. They are actively contributing to our harm. Think about it. And, our military in the hands of what seems to be a crime family, wrecking the middle east and our chances for good will from other countries.
Why don’t we collectively, and legally, renounce our US citizenship, because of legal and moral concerns, form a new cyber-country and stop paying taxes to BushCo?
There is so much pollution now most everywhere in the country. Back in the fifties, my family was poisoned by a toxic waste dump polluting our well water. I’ve been having problems ever since. You can pretty much figure where the hot spots are. Just follow the cancer and autism clusters. In my county, we citizens are trying to free up that information which our trusty health department is sitting on. Meanwhile, it’s April. Events for the one in every 166 children who are autistic are popping up all over. When my autistic son was little, it was one in 2000. Funds are being raised for cancer. But I don’t hear a mumblin’ word about the connection with pollution or trying to halt it at the sources. In 2002, George W. Bush shut down the remaining funding for Super Fund sites clean up. Apparently, he must have also stopped the identification of new sites as a site I had gotten the EPA to test never got on the list. No worry. Those thousand families are low income working stiffs. More and more and more and more money for cancer treatment and programs for disabled children. Nary a penny for clean up.
Re the military dumping solvents behind hangars, etc. It gets worse. For many decades, the military put radioactive wastes into 55 gallon drums and dumped them in the ocean beyond the 12 mile limit.
24.5 ppb sounds like a good working standard where there is substantial contamination. A terget to reach for. The state standards of 2 or 6 ppb look like overkill. They say “we don’t want it if you can measure it, and we don’t care what is considered a safe level”.
If the hangup is bickering about safe versus zero level, we need to be realistic. If its White House, DoD and defense contractor interference, then EPA should determine the best limit and enforce it. Less than 8 months!
We have to do the right thing. If they screwed up they screwed up, face it like adults. Don’t go skulking around seeing what you can get away with like irresponsible children. People’s lives and health are at stake. Even in the MTBE clean up, the companies are being made to step up. They should have known better in the first place and so should Congress. This after the fact stuff has got to stop. We need to do the right thing up front and if not we need to fix the problems that we created. That is the only responsible thing to do and will help us to remember the right thing to do in the future.
Agave, if you want some information, you could start by checking out the USGS water surveillance program at http://water.usgs.gov/nawqa/
In 2002, the USGS published a paper in Environmental Science and Technology showing that a large number of streams in the US were contaminated with chemicals ranging from pesticides to hormones to pharmaceuticals. See: Pharmaceuticals, Hormones, and
Other Organic Wastewater Contaminants in U.S. Streams, 1999-2000: A National Reconnaissance, available at: http://pubs.acs.org/journals/esthag/36/i06/pdf/es011055j.pdf
As for an actual quantitative value below which it is reasonable to claim a given chemical is safe, that is a thorny question. For example, common birth control pills, ethynyl estradiol are significant in the parts per trillion range. Canadian researchers seeded an entire lake with 6-8 parts per trillion of this chemical and not only did all the male fish become sex-reversed to female, but not unexpectedly, the entire population crashed in only two years. See: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content-nw/full/104/21/8897
Perchlorates are very potent chemicals, but I haven’t researched them very much myself, so I can’t say what a “safe” level might be. After all, we are exposed to a large number of chemicals that didn’t exist even 50 years ago. The EPA evaluates chemicals in isolation, completely ignoring mixtures which is the rule for exposures. I would hardly trust the EPA’s determination of what is safe.
If anyone thinks that the EPA is anything other than a political agency ruled over by a mentally deranged hack (Bush et.al.), they are mistaken. I think Galen has it right about their approach.
Perchlorate contaminates aquifers in the San Fernando Valley of California where a Rocketdyne plant used to be. The last I read about it, the “solution” to the problem was to dilute aquifer water with non-contaminated water to reduce the concentrations of perchlorate that people consume.
So, they didn’t eliminate the perchlorate from the water.
Rocketdyne supported a military program, meaning that federal funds helped contaminate state acquifers. And these EPA clowns plan to do nothing?
The empire has the political will to fire rockets but not to discover the destructive side effects. And where are the investigatons of poisons spewed from all sides in the Battle for Iraq, year after year? Who’s fault is this? God Bless the United States of America!
libertas fugit:
Since when have We The People ever meant anything or have been of importance to the overlords?
pistonbroke:
Reverse Osmosis Machine?
Milk tested by a chemist?
Yeah sure that’s all fine and dandy…provided that you’ve got the dinero needed to pay for an expensive machine (they’re not cheap ya know); as for that compleate chemical analysis of yer milk…well that too is not el cheapo unless of course money IS no object to YOU eh?
“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” — Grover Norquist
The site:
http://www1.environmentalhealthnews.org/
has more information on chemical pollutants.
The grotesque irony in all of this is that the military is supposed to be about security, PROTECTING citizens from harm. In point of fact, everything it touches (and/or lays claim to) it destroys!
CULICOMORPHA: Good posting. Thank you.
Every persistent man made chemical both known and unknown is finely spread and exchanged amoungst all living organisms of the biosphere, in the water, rain, ice from north to south poles. And we are still adding more and slowly accumulating up the food chain. Our Industrial Chemical and Nuclear Energy civilization is gradually building up its toxic legacy in air and water. Mysteriously our robust metabolisms carry on. You will not get treatment for mysterious hormonal, immunological, developmental ailments or compensation. No kind of health system can deal with systematic environmental poisoning.
Actually, the health care system its self is a major source of pollution. Much of medical supplies is disposible and there is a lot of waste built into the system.
Clean Water Project
Scientists at the University of Aberdeen are developing new technology that uses sunlight to treat dirty water and create electricity simultaneously.
http://www.cleanwaterproject.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2