News Coverage
Discussion centers on perchlorate
Groundwater group's conference addresses problems with pollutant
Published August 4, 2004
While the polarizing debate about the health effects of the chemical perchlorate rages on, officials at a groundwater conference Wednesday agreed the toxic substance is appearing increasingly in our food and water supply.
More than 300 people attended the statewide conference on perchlorate at theGlendale Hilton, sponsored by the Groundwater Resources Association of California.
The group represented a wide range of people with a vested interest in issues surrounding perchlorate -- from water suppliers, cities and environmental groups to scientific consultants, the defense industry and everybody's lawyers.
Perchlorate, a highly water-soluble byproduct of rocket fuel and explosives manufacturing, has impacted 370 drinking-water sources statewide, 334 of which are in Southern California.
Renee Sharp, a senior analyst with the Environmental Working Group, was part of a toxicology panel that reported on several recent studies finding perchlorate in food and cow's milk. Evidence, Sharp said, that crops and livestock are being affected by contaminated irrigation water or feed.
Samples from common backyard and commercial crops collected from Southern California farms and grocery stores for the studies, including lettuce, strawberries, blackberries, alfalfa and soy, contained perchlorate concentrations ranging from 3.4 to 5.7 parts per billion, just below the current state action level of 6 ppb.
"These were not an artifact of the lab. This is the real world," Sharp said.
No one at Wednesday's meeting disputed Sharp's findings, but where the various entities go their separate ways is over how much exposure to perchlorate is harmful.
Other scientists on the toxicology panel with Sharp argued that tests done on small animals do not properly apply to humans, that nitrates in foods are naturally occurring and individual physiology comes into play as well.
Perchlorate, which inhibits iodine uptake into the thyroid, has been classified as particularly harmful to pregnant women and infants and causingmental retardation and other developmental disorders. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has set a public health goal at 1 ppb, while the state EPA has adopted a temporary level of 6 ppb.
The defense industry, largely considered the source of perchlorate from numerous aerospace and manufacturing plants around the state, continues to lobby vigorously for higher allowable levels of perchlorate. On Wednesday, Sharp criticized studies being done by the National Academy of Sciences and the Council on Water Quality, which she said were funded by the alleged polluters and thus skewed in their favor.
"I think it's important to consider who these studies are paid for by," Sharp said.
At the Boeing Rocketdyne Santa Susana Field Lab, a rocket test site in the hills above Simi, perchlorate has contaminated the soil and groundwater at high levels.
The site is undergoing a cleanup but remains under suspicion as the source of contamination on the valley floor.
Boeing officials continue to vigorously deny the Field Lab is the source of pollution in Simi -- an aggressive stance that a panel of environmental attorneys agreed the defense industry is taking to avoid paying for costly cleanup.
Water agencies and defense contractors are embroiled in costly lawsuits in the San Gabriel and Santa Clarita valleys.
"It's like a high-stakes game of poker," said Andrew Yamamoto, an attorney who represents plaintiffs such as cities or water agencies against alleged polluters.
Earl Hagstrom, on the other hand, who represents defendants in such cases, argued that defense contractors, who once provided good-paying jobs, should not have to shoulder the cost of cleanup alone.
"Every dollar we spend on remediation is one less dollar that goes toward growing the economy," Hagstrom said.
He also believes litigation before a final public health-exposure limit is established is "putting the cart before the horse," but he said it would be years before such a limit is established.
Science, politics, legislation and economics all come into play when trying to arrive at a limit agreeable to all, Hagstrom said.
Others, such as Gina Solomon, a senior scientist for the National Resources Defense Council and assistant clinical professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, said she finds herself rather mpatient with the drawn-out debate in establishing a perchlorate goal protective of health in California.
She insists numerous studies indicate perchlorate exposure at even very low levels is harmful to fetuses and nursing infants.
"Instead of continuing to argue the science," Solomon said during a keynote speech at the conference, "we need to find ways to clean up this problem to be protective of public health."