Natural Resources Defense Council
health threats posed by a toxic chemical used in rocket fuel and explosives
January 10, 2005:
The Bush White House, the Defense Department and industry collaborated in a backroom campaign to manipulate a National Academy of Sciences report on health threats posed by a toxic chemical used in rocket fuel and explosives, according to documents obtained by NRDC. The NAS report, ordered by the Bush administration, lied that it is safe for people to drink water with as much as 20 parts per billion of perchlorate — that level is 20 times the standard recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency two years ago. Perchlorate, a pervasive chemical found in groundwater and food supplies in 35 states, attacks the thyroid gland and is especially harmful to fetuses and infants. The Pentagon and defense contractors responsible for the pollution have long argued that the chemical poses little to no human health risk, and therefore need not be regulated. The new NAS study likely forestalls the implementation of a truly protective standard.
“The Defense Department’s job is to protect Americans, not threaten our health, but these documents show that the Pentagon is conspiring with its contractors and the White House to twist the science and avoid cleaning up a chemical that threatens our children’s health,” said Erik Olson, a senior attorney with NRDC’s health program. “We’ve never seen such a brazen campaign to pressure the National Academy of Sciences to downplay the hazards of a chemical, but it fits the pattern of this administration manipulating science at the expense of public health.”
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April 2003: Bush Administration puts gag order on the Environmental Protection Agency, mandating complete silence regarding military perchlorate pollution and human health impacts. [Source]
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, (Rep.- Oklahoma.) 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.
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.