News Coverage
Perchlorate stirs up Capitol Hill
Published May 2, 2003
WASHINGTON -- California's senators are pushing the Bush administration to provide more information about perchlorate and help clean up the toxic chemical that has leaked into the Colorado River, contaminating lettuce samples in northern California.
"This week's revelations have suggested that the situation could be even worse than previously thought, as perchlorate may have been absorbed into produce that was irrigated with perchlorate-contaminated water," wrote Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and two other Democratic senators.
Boxer, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman and Nevada Sen. Harry Reid sent the letter Thursday to the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, demanding the agency provide more information about the health risks of perchlorate, a chemical found in rocket fuel. Most contaminated sites lie near military bases or defense-contracting facilities that made rocket fuel or explosives.
The EPA had not seen the senators' letter yet and had no comment, spokeswoman Lisa Harrison said Friday. But the agency asked the National Academy of Sciences last month to make a new assessment of the health risks of perchlorate, she said. "The EPA certainly takes perchlorate contamination very seriously," Harrison said.
Studies have shown perchlorate can cause thyroid problems in adults and also harm the development of children. Perchlorate has been found in drinking water throughout the West, especially in California, where 426 contaminated water sources have been reported, according to the state's Department of Health Services.
The issue came to a head last week after the Environmental Working Group found that four out of 22 samples of lettuce purchased in northern California contained perchlorate. The lettuce was grown around Imperial County, Calif., and Fort Yuma, Ariz., where farms pull water from the Colorado River, which is known to contain perchlorate leaking from a manufacturing plant upstream in Henderson, Nev. Over the past few months, lawmakers have unleashed a torrent of letters to the EPA and Defense Department asking what are safe levels of perchlorate in food and water and what is the military doing to clean up the contaminants.
-- Boxer and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., wrote Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last month urging the department to list priority sites for cleaning up perchlorate. They also want the military to start cleaning up sites, especially in California, Nevada and Arizona. -- Boxer wrote the EPA in March saying the agency has spent 10 years studying perchlorate and should be able to set a national standard on perchlorate by July 2004. "Local officials cannot afford to wait another decade while perchlorate continues to seep into their water supplies unabated before EPA takes action," she said.
-- Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., wrote the EPA requesting the agency obtain information from the Defense Department about perchlorate contamination at military facilities. The agency requested the information in 1999, but the Defense Department has refused to cooperate, Dingell said.
Worse, the Defense Department is seeking an exemption from having to clean up perchlorate and other contaminants, Dingell said. The Bush administration has submitted a plan to Congress that would exempt the military from some environmental laws.
The Defense Department had not responded to the senators' letter about funding perchlorate clean-up or listing the most high-risk sites as of Friday, a Pentagon spokesman said.
In testimony to Senate Environment and Public Works Committee in April, Benedict Coleman -- deputy general counsel for the Defense Department -- said the department was not seeking to get out of its liability to clean up perchlorate.
"Nothing in our legislative program alters the financial, clean-up or operational responsibilities of our contractors or of DOD with respect to our contractors, either regarding perchlorate or any other chemical," Coleman said.