EPA FAIL: No Plans to Remove Rocket Fuel from our Drinking Water

When Bush was president, the EPA was practically useless. We couldn’t count on them to get anything important done – for us, anyway. They were more than happy to help out their industry buddies, though. Well, despite a fresh new EPA that’s seemingly more on top of things than their predecessors, perchlorate – also known as rocket fuel – is still present in abundant quantities in our drinking water.

Studies have found perchlorate not just in tap water but in milk, tomatoes, lettuce, carrots – even human breast milk and urine, showing just how widespread the contamination really is. Yet Bush’s EPA decided not to protect us from it – and so far, Obama’s EPA hasn’t reversed that decision, despite the recent finding of alarming quantities of the substance in infant formula.

From NRDC Switchboard:

Instead, EPA had said that a national primary drinking water regulation for perchlorate would not present “a meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public water systems.”

In addition to its failure to take action on perchlorate in drinking water, EPA has proposed a Health Advisory Level (HRL) of 15 micrograms per liter (µg/L, equal to parts per billion, ppb) of perchlorate in drinking water, which EPA says would be used as a cleanup level in contaminated sites. However, EPA’s own scientific experts calculated that if drinking water were contaminated at that level approximately 400,000 children under one year old would be drinking unsafe levels of perchlorate daily (i.e. they would exceed EPA’s calculated daily allowable level (reference dose, RfD) of 0.7 microgram per kilogram body weight per day (µg/kg bw/d).

The report from government scientists last month found that levels of perchlorate in some milk-based infant formula and formula reconstituted with contaminated drinking water were so high that infants drinking these contaminated food sources would exceed the RfD for perchlorate.

You might be thinking, “Well, then maybe it’s okay for us to drink rocket fuel.” Wrong. The ill health effects of perchlorate contamination have been documented for decades. Prolonged exposure can cause impaired thyroid function, which can then lead to obesity or extreme weight loss, infertility and Grave’s Disease. The EPA itself found in 1995 that laboratory animals developed thyroid disorders after two weeks of drinking perchlorate-laced water.

No amount of rocket fuel in our water is acceptable – especially in conjunction with all of the other chemicals that are allowed in ‘small amounts’. The EPA needs to take action, and they need to do it now.

Link [NRDC Switchboard]
Photo credit: David Leonard

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