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Science Panel Issues Report on Exposure to Pollutant (perchlorate)
NY Times ^ | January 11, 2005 | FELICITY BARRINGER

Posted on 01/11/2005 4:17:26 PM PST by neverdem

WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 - In an eagerly awaited report on perchlorate, one of the most controversial unregulated toxic pollutants in the country's drinking water and food supplies, the National Academy of Sciences said Monday that people would be safe if exposed to daily doses 20 times those under consideration by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Depending on how federal and state regulators interpret the academy's recommendation, the Defense Department, its contractors and other federal agencies responsible for contamination from perchlorate, a component of solid rocket fuel, could avoid cleanup costs of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The environmental agency and the states of California and Massachusetts have already taken the initial steps in the regulatory process, with the E.P.A. and Massachusetts both suggesting a maximum safe level of one part per billion, and California setting a goal of six parts per billion. Thus far, no regulation on the maximum safe level of perchlorate in drinking water has been made final.

Large doses of the chemical, in widespread use by the Defense Department since the 1950's, have been shown to inhibit the thyroid gland's ability to take up iodide from a person's diet. Insufficient iodide has been linked with impaired neurological development, but the report said that the evidence the panel examined "is inadequate to determine whether or not there is a causal association between perchlorate exposure and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in children."

The scientists on the National Academy panel avoided arriving at a figure for safe drinking water levels, saying that was not their charge, recommending instead a safe level based on body weight. Some state regulators and representatives of environmental groups, doing their own extrapolations from the panel's report, said it would support a drinking water standard of 20 parts per billion. Others said the conclusions could support maximum levels of less than three parts per billion.

Pentagon scientists, using the same human studies that underpinned the academy's report, had concluded that the maximum safe level of perchlorate in drinking water supplies was 200 parts per billion.

Groundwater around the country has been found to contain trace levels of perchlorate. The chemical has been detected in the Colorado River, a water source for 15 million people in the Southwest. The town of Bourne on Cape Cod closed some wells because of high perchlorate levels.

But perchlorate's toxicity is hotly disputed, as are safe exposure levels. The debate led four federal agencies, including the Defense Department, to ask the academy to assess perchlorate's adverse health effects.

In its report, the 15-member panel, led by Dr. Richard B. Johnston Jr. of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, said that risk assessments should be based on human studies that indicate when the thyroid's uptake of iodide is inhibited. The E.P.A.'s 2002 risk assessment had relied in part on studies of rats that indicated changes in some brain structures after perchlorate exposure.

Scientists from environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Working Group pointed out that the main human study involved only seven healthy adults who ingested scaled amounts of perchlorate for 14 days.

Regulators in both California and Massachusetts said Monday that they would review the report and, if necessary, adjust their preliminary findings on perchlorate. Allan Hirsch, a spokesman for the Office of Health and Hazard Assessment in California, said that changes might not be necessary, adding that the National Academy dose recommendation "is highly consistent with the calculations we made."

In an earlier call with reporters, officials of the Natural Resources group said that the evidence considered by the panel had been unfairly weighted on the side of industry and the Defense Department, which, along with the White House had an undue influence on the process. They cited evidence they obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which showed extensive e-mail communication among high-ranking administration members about the charge given to the academy panel.

Richard Canaday, a representative of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, responded in a telephone interview: "There is no basis for that claim. This is an attempt to distort the science by attacking the process." The academy, Mr. Canaday added, is the "gold standard of independent scientific review."


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: environment; epa; nas; perchlorate; water
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1 posted on 01/11/2005 4:17:26 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem

Isn't perchlorate used in dry cleaning, too?


2 posted on 01/11/2005 4:18:30 PM PST by mewzilla (Has CBS retracted the story yet?)
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To: mewzilla

And if so, surely dry cleaners put out more of this stuff than the DOD?


3 posted on 01/11/2005 4:20:47 PM PST by mewzilla (Has CBS retracted the story yet?)
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To: mewzilla
Like folks from the NYT don't use dry cleaners.
4 posted on 01/11/2005 4:26:44 PM PST by mewzilla (Has CBS retracted the story yet?)
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To: mewzilla

Isn't perchlorate used in dry cleaning, too?

Perchloroethylene is a solvent used in dry cleaning. Perchlorates (usually inn solid form) are most often used in the reaction process for solid rocket motors.


5 posted on 01/11/2005 4:27:40 PM PST by umgud
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To: mewzilla
I made gunpowder once with potassium perchlorate.

Looks like they're just looking for something else to regulate, though.

6 posted on 01/11/2005 4:27:51 PM PST by thulldud (It's bad luck to be superstitious.)
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To: mewzilla


No. Halogenated hydrocarbons yes.


7 posted on 01/11/2005 4:29:31 PM PST by dr huer
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To: mewzilla
Isn't perchlorate used in dry cleaning, too?

I believe that's trichloroethylene used just as a polar organic solvent. Perchlorate in the form of a salt is probably used as an oxidizing agent, IIRC.

Solid Rocket Fuel

8 posted on 01/11/2005 4:29:36 PM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: neverdem

The POS lawyer scumbags are trolling for the next deep-pocket to destroy ---- along with destroying another American icon and the reason for our greatness and superiority over the rest of the world ---- NASA and our space program!

The tyrannical judges with their minions in the congress are probably also itching for this new boonfall of money combined with another opportunity to trash our nation.


9 posted on 01/11/2005 4:31:56 PM PST by steplock (http://www.outoftimeradio.org)
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To: umgud
Well, FWIW, all the reports I've seen on contamination from dry cleaning solvents have used the term perchlorates. And the stuff used by dry cleaners can and has contaminated ground water. Which I daresay is a bigger problem than the one created by the stuff used in solid rocket motors for the DOD. If all that's true, then it makes me wonder why the NYT is busting on the DOD instead of dry cleaners.
10 posted on 01/11/2005 4:32:39 PM PST by mewzilla (Has CBS retracted the story yet?)
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To: El Gato; JudyB1938; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Robert A. Cook, PE; lepton; LadyDoc; jb6; tiamat; PGalt; ..

FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.


11 posted on 01/11/2005 4:36:42 PM PST by neverdem (May you be in heaven a half hour before the devil knows that you're dead.)
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To: umgud; All
Perchloroethylene is a solvent used in dry cleaning. Perchlorates (usually inn solid form) are most often used in the reaction process for solid rocket motors.

Thanks! Well, to put this in perspective, I daresay that the former is a bigger problem for the environment than the latter, quantity-wise, anyway?

12 posted on 01/11/2005 4:37:06 PM PST by mewzilla (Has CBS retracted the story yet?)
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To: mewzilla
The dry cleaning solvent is tetrachloroethene (C2Cl4) which is also known as PERC, perchlor and perchlorethylene. It is an halogenated organic solvent and is already regulated in drinking water at 5 micrograms per liter. As stated above, perchlorate (ClO4-) is a salt used in rocket fuel.
13 posted on 01/11/2005 4:44:16 PM PST by CedarDave (I have a new puppy; unlike the Dems he will quit whining when he grows up.)
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To: neverdem

Just finished Crichton's book "State of Fear"....highly recommended reading for an antitode to media induced fear mongering.


14 posted on 01/11/2005 4:51:21 PM PST by Katya (Homo Nosce Te Ipsum)
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To: neverdem
In an earlier call with reporters, officials of the Natural Resources group said that the evidence considered by the panel had been unfairly weighted on the side of industry and the Defense Department, which, along with the White House had an undue influence on the process.

As is usually the case, any time some molecule is shown not to be overly dangerous to human health and the environment, the envirowackos and their scum lawyers scream that big corporations or industry has had "undue influence". This was the case with arsenic where the level was dropped five-fold two years ago causing immense increases in costs of treatment and cleanup. In some cases in the west, changes in the arsenic standard caused native drinking water which had been ingested safely for years to become "contaminated" and "unsafe" for use without expensive treatment. The change was controversial because the evidence of an adverse health effect was minimal or nonexistent. But the Bush administration gave in to the well orchestrated campaign by the enviowackos and the MSM, and EPA lowered the standard.

15 posted on 01/11/2005 4:54:51 PM PST by CedarDave (I have a new puppy; unlike the Dems he will quit whining when he grows up.)
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To: neverdem
Large doses of the chemical, in widespread use by the Defense Department since the 1950's, have been shown to inhibit the thyroid gland's ability to take up iodide . . .

How large is 'large'? Would I have to take a bite out of a solid rocket motor to get close?

16 posted on 01/11/2005 5:28:26 PM PST by BenLurkin (Big government is still a big problem.)
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To: BenLurkin

Perchlorate does not damage the thyroid gland. High levels of perchlorate, above 200 parts per billion (ppb), can temporarily affect the thyroid's ability to absorb iodide from the bloodstream, but this in itself is not an adverse effect (it happens naturally in every human as a result of diet and other factors). Perchlorate is not stored in any human tissues, including the thyroid gland.


17 posted on 01/11/2005 5:50:12 PM PST by DaveTesla (You can fool some of the people some of the time......)
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To: mewzilla
why the NYT is busting on the DOD instead of dry cleaners.

Cuz it's Bush's DOD and I suspect the NYT elitist have a lot of "dry clean only" clothes.

It's not like these people actually care.

18 posted on 01/11/2005 6:56:20 PM PST by lizma
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To: farmfriend


19 posted on 01/11/2005 8:17:29 PM PST by Libertarianize the GOP (Make all taxes truly voluntary)
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To: neverdem; abbi_normal_2; Ace2U; adam_az; Alamo-Girl; Alas; alfons; alphadog; amom; AndreaZingg; ...
This is a big issue here around Aerojet.

Rights, farms, environment ping.
Let me know if you wish to be added or removed from this list.
I don't get offended if you want to be removed.

20 posted on 01/11/2005 8:23:24 PM PST by farmfriend ( Congratulation. You are everything we've come to expect from years of government training.)
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