Let Them Eat Rocket Fuel
Erik D. Olson
January 27, 2005
The fact that there's a rocket fuel additive called perchlorate in your
water is bad enough. What's worse is the fact that the Bush administration
likely manipulated the National Academy of Sciences to designate a lax
perchlorate standard. The National Resources Defense Council sued the White
House, Defense Department and EPA to release documents relating to
perchlorate contamination and the NAS. What they found was evidence of an
elaborate campaign designed to downplay the hazards of a dangerous chemical.
Erik D. Olsen is a senior attorney at the National Resources Defense Council
specializing in safe drinking water issues. He is the national coordinator
of the Campaign for Safe and Affordable Drinking Water, a coalition of more
than 300 public interest groups dedicated to improved drinking water
protection.
More than 20 million Americans have rocket fuel in their drinking water.
That's right. Rocket fuel. It's also likely in your milk. And in your
lettuce, too, because farmers out West inadvertently use
rocket-fuel-contaminated water to irrigate their crops.
You might not think that's a good thing. Scientists at the Environmental
Protection Agency didn't, either. Especially since a toxic salt in rocket
fuel, called perchlorate, can harm the thyroid and may disrupt fetal and
newborn brain development. In 2002, EPA proposed a safe level in drinking
water of only 1 part per billion. That's equivalent to half a teaspoon of
perchlorate in an Olympic-size swimming pool. The Pentagon and its
contractors-who have polluted food and drinking water across the
country-argued that 200 parts per billion is safe.
Earlier this month, a National Academy of Sciences panel issued a report
finding that on a per body-weight basis, more perchlorate can be tolerated
than the EPA had concluded-but still far less than what the Pentagon and its
corporate pals had claimed. Why was NAS' conclusion higher than EPA's?
Perhaps NAS was responding to enormous pressure from the White House, the
Defense Department, and defense contractors. According to government
documents recently obtained by the Natural Resources Defense Council, they
collaborated in a backroom campaign to try to strong-arm the academy and
manipulate the report. Despite this campaign, the panel did conclude that
low levels of perchlorate exposure may cause health problems, and that
fetuses are at particular risk.
For decades, the Defense Department and its contractors have carelessly used
millions of pounds of perchlorate, contaminating water and food supplies. At
the same time, the Pentagon has been blocking EPA efforts to address
perchlorate pollution, and in the last few years it intensified its campaign
in the face of new revelations about perchlorate's harmful effects. In
January 2002, when EPA recommended that 1 ppb was the safe level in drinking
water, the Pentagon and its contractors lobbied to stop the assessment
process and-with the help of the White House-wrested the assessment from EPA
and handed it to NAS in 2003. Then the White House, the Pentagon and its
contractors went to work to influence the NAS process.
NRDC sued the White House, Defense Department and EPA in March 2004 after
they ignored more than a dozen Freedom of Information Act requests, refusing
to disclose any records documenting their campaign to steamroll NAS or
details of the perchlorate problem. In response to the suit, the White House
and the two agencies recently provided about 30 boxes of documents to NRDC,
but are still withholding thousands of other records-including virtually all
the key papers documenting White House and Pentagon efforts to influence
NAS. However, they were required by court order to issue a "Vaughn Index"
describing each of the withheld documents. This index reveals an
extraordinary level of White House and Pentagon effort to limit the scope of
NAS' inquiry and select the panelists, as well as collaboration with DOD
contractors to pressure the panel.
Scientists at the EPA, in state agencies, and in academia have concluded
that very low levels of perchlorate threaten fetusus' and infants' health.
The NAS panel's recommendation for a safe level is based on industry studies
that fed perchlorate to a small number of healthy adults for a short time.
Those studies tell us little about how perchlorate can harm fetuses or
infants, or harm adults over a longer period of time (particularly millions
of Americans with thyroid problems or who are iodine deficient). Studies of
animals, also funded by the industry, showed that perchlorate may cause
abnormal brain development in young rodents, but accepting the arguments of
the Pentagon and industry, the academy said more studies are needed to prove
that these same effects would occur in infants and children.
Still, in an implicit nod to the possible effects of perchlorate on babies,
the NAS panel advised pregnant women exposed to perchlorate to take iodine
pills, because the chemical impairs the thyroid's ability to absorb iodine.
That recommendation is akin to putting a pregnant woman in a room full of
smokers and giving her a gas mask. To suggest that part of the solution for
pregnant women is to take vitamins to protect their babies from perchlorate
exposure is troubling; it puts the burden on moms to address a threat they
had nothing to do with creating. The burden should instead be on the
polluters-the Defense Department and its contractors-to clean up their mess.
Fortunately, even with the NAS panel's report issued under duress, it is
still possible that EPA and states could set a drinking water standard for
perchlorate at about 1 part per billion, the original EPA-recommended level.
How? After considering new data showing people are exposed to perchlorate
from many sources-including water, food and milk-and after adjusting for
body weight of fetuses and newborns, drinking water standards for
perchlorate should wind up close to 1 ppb. Massachusetts and Maryland
currently have 1 ppb cleanup levels for perchlorate, while California has
proposed a 6 ppb standard.
NRDC has never seen such a brazen campaign to pressure the National Academy
of Sciences to downplay the hazards of a chemical, but it fits into the Bush
administration's pattern of trying to manipulate science at the expense of
public health. Over the last year, more than 6,000 U.S. scientists,
including 48 Nobel laureates, 62 National Medal of Science recipients, and
several science advisers to past Republican presidents, signed a letter
accusing the Bush administration of distorting and censoring science for
political purposes. The shameful White House-Defense Department effort to
manipulate the NAS perchlorate panel is just the most recent-and one of the
most disturbing-examples. It's time for the EPA and the states to make
lemonade from the lemons the Pentagon and White House have given them.
Despite the higher acceptable dose level the NAS has proposed, the EPA and
states must set strict perchlorate standards that protect pregnant women and
infants.
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