http://www.tompaine.com/articles/let_them_eat_rocket_fuel.php
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.
_______________________________________________
Biofuel mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel
Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable):
http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Allen,http://ozarker.org/bob
------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The modern conservative is engaged in one of Man's oldest exercises
in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral
justification for selfishness JKG
--------------------------------------------------------------------
---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by Declude Virus]
_______________________________________________
Biofuel mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://wwia.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/biofuel
Biofuel at Journey to Forever:
http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html
Biofuel archives at Infoarchive.net (searchable):
http://infoarchive.net/sgroup/biofuel/