News Coverage
California regulators set goal for perchlorate in drinking water
Published March 12, 2004
LOS ANGELES -California officials have taken the first step toward establishing a limit on the amount of perchlorate allowed in drinking water, which would be the first such level set in the country for the toxin.
The California Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday set its public health goal for perchlorate - a rocket fuel component that can cause thyroid disorders and is found in Colorado River water that serves 15 million customers - at six parts per billion.
"While it is not a regulation, this goal provides scientific guidance to health authorities in setting a regulatory standard for perchlorate in drinking water," said Joan Denton of the state EPA's Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment.
Next, the state's Department of Health Services will set a standard for the chemical, which is required to be as close to the goal set by the EPA as economically and technically feasible, Denton said.
Environmental groups said the recommendation was too low and still allows levels of perchlorate in drinking water that are high enough to be a threat to pregnant women and children.
"The state admits that infants are among the most sensitive to perchlorate toxicity," said Gina Solomon of the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Yet the goal it's setting does not account for the huge water consumption of bottle-fed babies, nor the fact that perchlorate can get into mother's milk."
James Strock, a representative of several defense firms, disputed the suggestion that the level recommended Thursday was too high.
Strock, a former secretary of the state EPA under Gov. Pete Wilson, noted the public health goal is only a preliminary recommendation. "Accordingly, it would be an error to assume that exposures above this level place people at risk," he said.
California has a particular problem with perchlorate, because of its decades-long involvement with the defense industry, military and space programs.
Contamination from the toxin has shut down hundreds of wells that tap polluted groundwater, and perchlorate has been found in crops produced in affected areas.
Also, thousands of people have filed lawsuits, saying years of drinking water laced with the chemical have caused cancers and other illness.
Strock and others had pushed the EPA to wait until a study on perchlorate by the National Academy of Sciences was complete before setting the goal. Denton said the EPA will review the academy's conclusions once they are released, and revise the public health goal as necessary.
But environmentalists said that was a delay tactic by an industry unwilling to take on the costs of cleaning up polluted groundwater.
"It is unprecedented how much they were able to interfere with the process of publishing a public health goal," said Renee Sharp of the Environmental Working Group.