News Coverage
Fuel chemical found in local store milk
Environmental group wants state to tighten its standards on perchlorate. State disputes findings, says milk is safe.
Published June 21, 2004
A chemical used in rocket fuel has found its way into supermarket milk, a California environmental group said Monday, urging that state health standards be tightened to reduce risks to children and pregnant women.
But the conclusions by the Environmental Working Group, which did its own testing of milk as well as relying on state data, were questioned by state health officials Monday - especially the group's assertion that the levels are unsafe.
"We don't see any imminent health threat," said Kevin Reilly, deputy director for prevention services at the state Department of Health Services. "We don't think it poses a health concern at this point."
The group tested various kinds of milk from grocery stores around Orange and Los Angeles counties for presence of the rocket-fuel chemical, perchlorate, which at high enough doses has been linked to thyroid damage. Thirty one out of 32 samples tested positive, but came in at less than the state's "public health goal" of 6 parts per billion.
The milk bought in Orange County, all in Irvine, tested below one part per billion.
But Bill Walker of the Environmental Working Group said the state's health goal for perchlorate is too high.
"It should be at least one part per billion," he said Monday, a level that he believes would be more likely to protect pregnant women, infants and children.
The state threshold is part of a lengthy regulatory process that will eventually result in a health standard for perchlorate in food.
The group also says the EPA criticized California's health goal of 6 parts per billion.
But Bruce Macler, a drinking-water toxicologist at the EPA in San Francisco, said he knew of no criticism his agency has made of California's goal.
The Environmental Working Group also obtained results from similar tests by the state Department of Food and Agriculture in April. These showed some higher levels: as high as 9 and even 10 parts per billion in some samples.
But agriculture department spokesman Steve Lyle said the data, taken frommilk silos around the state, was mainly to check new testing methods for perchlorate, and was "inconclusive."
His agency urged Californians to continue drinking milk, saying it was healthy and poses no threat.
"One part per billion is like a single grain of sand in a swimming pool," Lyle said.
Just where the perchlorate found in milk, even at low levels, might have come from is unknown. Walker speculated that it might have been present in alfalfa fed to cows. Or, it might have come from Colorado River water drunk by cows. Munitions plants along the Colorado in the past have had leaks of the chemical.
Reilly, of state health, also said perchlorate can form in some disinfection systems at processing plants.
Reilly said the state will continue analyzing data on perchlorate, including possible future testing of products.