News Coverage
Tighter water rules make factions clash
Published January 28, 2004
Environmentalists and corporate interests clashed Wednesday at a hearing to determine whether the state should immediately tighten its regulations for perchlorate contamination in drinking water.
Speaking before the Senate Select Committee on Perchlorate Contamination, environmentalists urged the state to immediately adopt a tough standard for the chemical, which is an ingredient of rocket fuel that can cause thyroid problems. It can be found in groundwater in Northern Los Angeles County and the Inland Empire.
Industry representatives said the state should wait at least a few months while the National Academy of Sciences completes a national study.
"Perchlorate poses an enormous risk of water contamination throughout the state," said Sujatha Jahagirdar, an official with the group Environment California. "It threatens California's health, water supply and economy."
Efforts to delay the change are a "stalling tactic," she added, and suggest that California agencies are incapable of performing their own research.
Craig Moyer, an industry attorney with Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, said a delay of a few months will be more valuable to the state in the long term, to ensure that the standards are in line with national studies.
"I think the time to get the science right is now," Moyer said.
Moyer counts the Goodrich Corp. among his clients, although he said he was not appearing specifically on the company's behalf. That company has been accused of causing perchlorate contamination in the Inland Valley.
He added that delaying only a few months to make sure it is right "doesn't sound like procrastination."
Replied the committee's chairwoman, Sen. Nell Soto, D-Ontario: "One day is procrastination to me."
Previous lawsuits demanding more review of California's studies have already delayed implementation of a new standard, committee officials noted.
Perchlorate, which is found primarily in rocket fuel, is particularly dangerous to infants and pregnant women in higher concentrations, according to health experts. It can interfere with the absorption of iodine into the thyroid gland, inhibiting mental and physical development. Perchlorate contamination, which has been subject to stronger scrutiny in the last six years, can be found throughout the state, including a site near the Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the hills above Chatsworth.
Public health experts disagree on the levels which are safe for human health, but various states have set levels ranging from 1 part per billion in Massachusetts and New Mexico to 18 ppb in Nevada, where a source of perchlorate contamination of the Colorado River originates. California currently has a tentative and unofficial standard of 4 ppb, but state agencies are considering to change it to 2 ppb. The federal government is still studying whether to set a national standard.
California has 426 perchlorate-contaminated water sources, including 127 in Los Angeles County, according to the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy organization.
Farmers are also concerned about perchlorate contamination because it can be present in the water they use to irrigate crops and accumulate in higher concentrations than that in the water itself. But growers are also concerned that California may set standards that are so high that it would create a perception that goods grown in California are unsafe because a higher percentage would fail to meet that higher standard, according to Hank Giclas, an official with the Western Growers Association.