The Bush administration has imposed a gag order on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from publicly discussing perchlorate pollution, even as two new studies reveal high levels of the rocket-fuel component may be contaminating the nation's lettuce supply.
| The
Defense Department refused to fund the roughly $215,000 needed to collect vegetables for sampling." Cornell Long - Head of perchlorate research for the Air Force. |
The lettuce studies, one published Monday by a nonprofit environmental group and one in final preparation by an EPA laboratory in Athens, Ga., address a crucial question in the current process of developing a federal drinking-water standard for perchlorate: whether Americans are ingesting the chemical from food sources in addition to drinking water. The answer, according to both studies, strongly suggests they are, which means that any eventual drinking-water standard will have to be that much stricter to account for the other sources of perchlorate exposure.
Perchlorate pollution in drinking water has become a major concern in some 20 states across the country, after an EPA recommendation last year that found perchlorate in drinking water poses dangers to human health, particularly to infant development, in concentrations above one part per billion. The Pentagon and several defense contractors, who face billions of dollars in potential cleanup liability for perchlorate pollution, vehemently oppose that EPA health-risk assessment, arguing perchlorate is safe in drinking water at levels 70 to 200 times higher than what the EPA says is safe. In January, U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, (R., Okla.) chairman of the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, weighed in on the industry's side with a long list of questions and criticisms of the EPA's report. The White House recently proposed a bill in Congress, in the name of military "readiness," that would effectively exempt the Pentagon and defense industry from much of their potential liability for perchlorate cleanup.
In another step, the White House Office of Management and Budget intervened last month to delay further regulatory action on perchlorate, by referring the health debate to the National Academy of Sciences for review, according to people familiar with the matter. Pending that study, which could take an additional six to 18 months, the EPA ordered its scientists and regulators not to speak about perchlorate, said Suzanne Ackerman, an EPA spokeswoman.
The gag order prevented EPA scientists from commenting or elaborating Friday on the two lettuce studies, which show lettuce, available in U.S. supermarkets, appears to absorb and concentrate perchlorate from polluted irrigation water in significant amounts. Other scientists familiar with the studies said both are limited in scope and are only suggestive, not conclusive, on the question of whether Americans are consuming perchlorate in food.
According to these scientists, definitive data on the perchlorate content in U.S. produce -- specified as a top EPA and Pentagon research priority in the late 1990s -- were supposed to have been available at least two years ago. But in 2000, after much time and effort had gone into designing a perchlorate study plan with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Pesticide Data Program, the Defense Department refused to fund the roughly $215,000 needed to collect vegetables for sampling, said Cornell Long, who heads perchlorate research on food sources for the Air Force.
"In a perfect world, we would have that farm gate data now" on vegetable content, Mr. Long said. "Everybody thought it was a good idea."
Mr. Long attributed the Pentagon's decision not to fund the study to bureaucratic issues involving budget cycles. Some environmentalists, however, say the Defense Department simply didn't want to know if perchlorate was in the U.S. food supply because of liability concerns.
"If they can spend $1 million on a cruise missile, it seems kind of ridiculous they won't spend $200,000 to see if our food is contaminated with rocket fuel," said Renee Sharp, a staff scientist with Environmental Working Group in Oakland, Calif., which initiated its own lettuce study instead.
Using private funding, the environmental group paid Texas Tech University, of Lubbock, Texas, to test 22 lettuce samples purchased in January and February in the San Francisco Bay Area. It chose the two winter months because nearly 90% of the nation's winter lettuce supply is grown in the desert in Southern California and Arizona with perchlorate-tainted irrigation water from the Colorado River. The results: Four of the 22 samples tested were found to contain perchlorate in excess of 30 parts per billion, with the highest -- "mixed organic baby greens" -- registering 121 ppb. After a flurry of mathematical extrapolations, the group concluded that 1.6 million U.S. women of childbearing age -- the population of greatest concern -- are exposed daily to more perchlorate than the EPA's recommended safe dose from winter lettuce alone.
"We don't claim this study is conclusive," said Ms. Sharp, its primary author. "We're saying, 'Isn't it scary we only took 22 samples and found so much perchlorate in four of them?"'
The EPA's own study, which was completed and peer-reviewed several weeks ago but has yet to be publicly released pending final adjustments, showed that lettuce grown in a greenhouse with perchlorate-contaminated water absorbs and concentrates the chemical at varying rates depending on leaf location. The study, reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, found the outer leaves of the lettuce, which the study's authors wrote are usually not eaten, concentrated perchlorate by a factor of 17 to 28, meaning the outer leaves contained 17 to 28 times more perchlorate in them than did the water used to irrigate the plants. The concentration factor for the "emerging head" -- the part people usually eat -- was three to nine, the study found.
Hence, if those results are found to be applicable to winter lettuce grown with Colorado River water, which contains between three and 10 parts per billion of perchlorate, the perchlorate concentration in the edible leaves could range as high as 90 ppb -- fairly close to the 72 ppb average perchlorate level that the Environmental Working Group found in its supermarket survey. The group says that level, for lettuce consumers, is four times the EPA's recommended daily dose for perchlorate.
"The studies have indicated we have reason for concern," says Allen Jennings, director of the USDA's office of pesticide management policy in Washington. "That's why it's critical to get as many foods as possible from the real world to find out."
Administration Looks to Protect Military, Contractors From Environmental Laws
The Bush administration, in the name of military "readiness," is asking Congress to shield the Pentagon and certain defense contractors from a broad array of environmental laws -- exemptions that among other things could greatly diminish the defense establishment's liability for perchlorate pollution in the nation's water supply.
Meanwhile, on a different front in the battle between environmental regulators and defense officials over perchlorate -- a component of rocket fuel that is turning up widely in drinking supplies -- the administration has decided to refer health questions about perchlorate to the National Academy of Sciences for further review. The pending study is likely to delay significantly efforts by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to set a national drinking-water standard for the chemical, which the EPA found last year poses risks to human health at drinking-water levels above just one part per billion.
The administration's two-pronged attack on regulating perchlorate comes after a protracted interagency debate on the chemical's health effects. The Pentagon and several of its suppliers, which could face several billion dollars in cleanup costs, have criticized vehemently the EPA's draft assessment of perchlorate's health dangers, arguing the chemical is harmless at drinking-water concentrations up to 200 times what the EPA says. Some EPA officials express concern the defense establishment, with so much money at stake, will attempt to stack the National Academy of Sciences review panel with its own sympathetic consultants.
"We're already hearing rumors the panel will be chosen in an adversarial process like selecting a jury," one EPA official says.
The administration's proposed environmental exemptions, proffered as amendments to the defense-authorization bill, essentially would grant the military greater training flexibility without having to worry about private or state suits over pollution.
Ostensibly, the exemptions would apply only to "operational" ranges and they wouldn't shield pollution that migrates off military properties. But the amendments' language is so sweeping and vague in several places that environmentalists and some state regulators fear the changes would shield the Pentagon from liability for almost any military pollution, even on bases that haven't been used for years.
For example, one of the amendments gives the defense secretary discretion to label nearly any range as operational, whether in use or not, thus potentially making it impossible to force clean-up at long-abandoned sites. Another amendment would extend the military's antipollution exemptions to off-site defense contractors, a long as they were involved in "military training, research and development or testing."
Possibly shielded under that category would be the dozens of sites nationwide where perchlorate was manufactured and handled during the Cold War, from where it spilled into surface and underground water supplies. One such site, for example, was Kerr-McGee Corp.'s massive perchlorate plant near Las Vegas, which regulators have blamed for polluting the Colorado River with perchlorate at roughly seven ppb. The Colorado provides drinking water to more than 15 million people in the Southwest.
SAN FRANCISCO-- Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer introduced legislation to require the Environmental Protection Agency to set a standard for perchlorate in drinking water by July 1, 2004 -- two years earlier than the EPA's current timetable.
Perchlorate, a component of solid rocket fuel, was spilled by the defense industry during the Cold War into surface and underground water supplies in more than 20 states. Last year, the EPA published a draft risk assessment asserting perchlorate is dangerous to the human thyroid system, particularly in infants, in drinking-water concentrations above one part per billion.
Sen. Boxer's bill does not specify any particular standard. Were the EPA to set a perchlorate limit below five ppb, as suggested by its research so far, it would likely cost the Department of Defense and several of its major contractors many billions of dollars in cleanup costs. The Colorado River itself, the main drinking-water source for more than 15 million people in the Southwest, is polluted with perchlorate at roughly seven ppb.
The Pentagon and its allies have spent more than $30 million researching perchlorate, in an effort to persuade the EPA the substance is not harmful in trace amounts. Last year, the Defense Department also sought, unsuccessfully, Congressional special exemptions from several environmental laws.
"We can't wait four more years to address this threat," said Sen. Boxer, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's toxics subcommittee. "EPA needs to get moving and protect our drinking water sooner rather than later."
|
If
you have come to this page from an outside location click
here to get back to mindfully.org |