News Coverage
Rocket Fuel Chemical Found In Lettuce Samples
Published December 1, 2004
How do you feel about a healthy green salad with some rocket fuel on the side?
The federal government says that's what you may be eating after testing some 200 samples of lettuce collected from across the U.S. Some of that greenery, grown right in Northern California. So what does it mean? ABC7's Stacey Hendler reports.
No one is saying don't eat lettuce or drink milk just yet, although those are the two foods the chemical was found in recently. But there is some cause for concern because a problem that was contained to certain local water sources is now making its way through the nation's food supply.
The Salinas Valley's lettuce has been picked for the year and growers are moving to Southern California for the new harvest. But they also have a new worry. Unusually high levels of a toxic chemical used in rocket fuel have been found in dozens of samples of milk produced in California and lettuce grown in the valley.
Bill Walker, Environmental Working Group: "It's in the fiber of the lettuce itself. It's not on the surface and that's one of the reasons why this problem shows up whether you're talking about organic milk and lettuce or conventional milk and lettuce."
The Food and Drug Adminstration tested more than 100 samples of various types of lettuce, much of it grown in the Salinas Valley. The average concentration of perchlorate was more than ten parts per billion. That's ten times what the government considers safe in drinking water.
But agriculture experts in the Salinas Valley say it's not time to panic yet.
James Bogart, Grower-Shipper Assoc. of Central Calif.: "All we know is yeah it's there, but does the fact that it's there pose a risk to people in consuming our products? And we don't know that yet."
Eric Lauritzen, commissioner, Monterey County Agriculture: "I think that what's surprising is that they found it in a place where we didn't expect to find it."
They're not sure how the rocket fuel is getting into ground water used for irrigation on the central coast, but in other parts of the country, military bases and defense contractors' testing sites are said to be the source.
Bill Walker, Environmental Working Group: "This surprising new information an indication of how widespread this problem is and how big an effort it's going to take by the federal government to clean it up."
Environmentalists are concerned mostly about the long term effects these foods may have on children because perchlorate affects the thyroid gland which can impact a child's growth and development. There are ongoing studies going on right now to determine what kind of risk there is in the measure of perchlorate they found in the recent samples.