Rocket Fuel in Our Drinking Water

I had planned to write more today about the largest welfare bill in history. For instance, did you know that President Ronald Reagan once said: 

''If you had a stack of $1,000 bills in your hand only four inches high, you'd be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of $1,000 bills 67 miles high.''

Really takes the breath away, does it not? And that's pretty much the amount of cabbage they're debating up on the hill today. And that cash money's all coming from you and me, folks. Good times! 

I also thought about writing about the new spider web that appears in my car each morning and what a disconcerting way that is to start the day. 

And I've been meaning to write about my reappraisal of Wilco. 

But then I read this. And I think, to use a term my friends on the right enjoy using, that this goes beyond policy debates. I think the people who make these decisions have entered into the realm of Evil. 

I wish I were kidding. You read that headline and you think it must be from The Onion. 

If only. 

EPA won't limit rocket fuel in U.S. drinking water

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency has decided there's no need to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has fouled public water supplies around the country.

EPA reached the conclusion in a draft regulatory document not yet made public but reviewed Monday by The Associated Press.

The ingredient, perchlorate, has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states at levels high enough to interfere with thyroid function and pose developmental health risks, particularly for babies and fetuses, according to some scientists.

The EPA document says that mandating a clean-up level for perchlorate would not result in a "meaningful opportunity for health risk reduction for persons served by public-water systems."

The conclusion, which caps years of dispute over the issue, was denounced by Democrats and environmentalists who accused EPA of caving to pressure from the Pentagon.

"This is a widespread contamination problem, and to see the Bush EPA just walk away is shocking," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the Senate's environment committee.

Lenny Siegel, director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight in Mountain View, Calif., added: "This is an unconscionable decision not based upon science or law but on concern that a more stringent standard could cost the government significantly."

The Defense Department used perchlorate for decades in testing missiles and rockets, and most perchlorate contamination is the result of defense and aerospace activities, congressional investigators said last year.

The Pentagon could face liability if EPA set a national drinking water standard that forced water agencies around the country to undertake costly clean-up efforts. Defense officials have spent years questioning EPA's conclusions about the risks posed by perchlorate.

The Pentagon objected strongly Monday to the suggestion that it sought to influence EPA's decision.

"We have not intervened in any way in EPA's determination not to regulate perchlorate. If you read their determination, that's based on criteria in the Safe Drinking Water Act," Paul Yaroschak, Pentagon deputy director for emerging contaminants, said in an interview.

Yaroschak said the Pentagon has been working for years to clean up perchlorate at its facilities. He also contended that the Pentagon wasn't the source of as much perchlorate contamination as once believed, noting that it also comes from fireworks, road flares and fertilizer.

Benjamin Grumbles, EPA's assistant administrator for water, said in a statement that "science, not the politics of fear in an election year, will drive our final decision."

"We know perchlorate in drinking water presents some degree of risk, and we're committed to working with states and scientists to ensure public health is protected and meaningful opportunities for reducing risk are fully considered," Grumbles said.

Grumbles said the EPA expected to seek comment and take final action before the end of the year. The draft document was first reported Monday by the Washington Post.

Perchlorate is particularly widespread in California and the Southwest, where it's been found in groundwater and in the Colorado River, a drinking-water source for 20 million people. It's also been found in lettuce and other foods.

In absence of federal action, states have acted on their own. In 2007, California adopted a drinking water standard of 6 parts per billion. Massachusetts has set a drinking water standard of 2 parts per billion.

Comments

[Lissa]

Perchlorate is particularly widespread in California and the Southwest

poses developmental health risks, particularly for babies and fetuses

Gosh, I'm happy to be a pregnant woman in California right now.

[KathyR]

You don't suppose that's why my son can run faster than his father or I ever could?

OK. No. Probably not.

[shannon]

There aren't words to describe my disgust with all this. If Obama doesn't win, I'm moving to Canada.

[Tabatha]

How do we fire the EPA?