Let Them Eat Rocket Fuel

[doodadem]

Let Them Eat Rocket Fuel
Erik D. Olson
January 27, 2005


The fact that there's a rocket fuel additive called perchlorate in your water is bad enough. What's worse is the fact that the Bush administration likely manipulated the National Academy of Sciences to designate a lax perchlorate standard. The National Resources Defense Council sued the White House, Defense Department and EPA to release documents relating to perchlorate contamination and the NAS. What they found was evidence of an elaborate campaign designed to downplay the hazards of a dangerous chemical.

Erik D. Olsen is a senior attorney at the National Resources Defense Council specializing in safe drinking water issues. He is the national coordinator of the Campaign for Safe and Affordable Drinking Water, a coalition of more than 300 public interest groups dedicated to improved drinking water protection.

More than 20 million Americans have rocket fuel in their drinking water. That’s right. Rocket fuel. It’s also likely in your milk. And in your lettuce, too, because farmers out West inadvertently use rocket-fuel-contaminated water to irrigate their crops.

You might not think that’s a good thing. Scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency didn’t, either. Especially since a toxic salt in rocket fuel, called perchlorate, can harm the thyroid and may disrupt fetal and newborn brain development. In 2002, EPA proposed a safe level in drinking water of only 1 part per billion. That’s equivalent to half a teaspoon of perchlorate in an Olympic-size swimming pool. The Pentagon and its contractors—who have polluted food and drinking water across the country—argued that 200 parts per billion is safe.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[seriousstan]

1. You forgot the link

the mods will lock a thread without a link.

[Wilms]

2. Here we are.

<http://www.tompaine.com/articles/let_them_eat_rocket_fuel.php>

[doodadem]

5. Whoops!

Thanks Wilms!
This is another thing that I'm very glad to see Barbara Boxer going after in our state.
I have a friend that is pretty sure her major thyroid problems came from when she was living amongst a bunch of defense contracting manufacturers in the midwest. My parents still live in that same area, and amazingly, they've both been diagnosed with cancer this past year.
Perchlorate is nasty, nasty, invasive stuff.

[Wilms]

6. No problem.

Just be sure to limit the snips to 4 paragraphs, as per DU Rules.

I messed that one up a few days back.

Welcome :)

[Igel]

3. It's probably the next arsenic scare.

No safe level determined, widespread, no way to identify where a lot of the perchlorate comes from ... but everybody'll have to find a way to make sure their little town's water purification system meets the standards.

http://www.mindfully.org/Water/2003/Perchlorate-Mystery-Texas2oct03.htm
http://www.mindfully.org/Food/2003/Perchlorate-Texas-Milk25sep03.htm

[Blue_Tires]

4. General Ripper warned us about this a LONG time ago!

lol

[dkofos]

7. Shouldn't that be

Let them drink rocket fuel??

[Ezlivin]

8. Silly rabbit! Trix is supposed to be flammable

No need to turn on the lights for breakfast when your cereal can light up the table and put you into orbit.

[KissMeKate]

9. our food supply is contaminated top to botom

organics help, but we need to demand safer food from ALL of our elected officials.

[hnsez]

10. some facts about Perchlorate - its not as bad as alot of other stuff, but

Percholorate (PCE) has been used in rocket fuel and pyrotechnics for decades. The people who worked with it and have gotten exposed to large quantities of it had decreased thyroid function BUT there was little or no other effect observed. For decades PCE was given to people who suffered from a hyperactive thyroid gland in doses of up to 1 gram per day. When their doses were halted the thyroid returned to its previous level of hormone production. No other major health issues were reported.

The standard used by the EPA was based on rodent studies and they developed disease that has not been seen in the humans who were exposed to similar levels per Kg of body weight. Obviously humans have enzymes or other means or breaking the PCE down.

There are much worse things in our environment than PCE for example Bush has been criminally negligent in the develoment of mercury emissions standards from power plants.

That said I disagree with the raising of the standard because the effects on infants have not been studied adequately. Some people may be unusually sensitive to it if they lack the means to break it down. Remember gulf war syndrome? Just because it is safe for 9,999 people, what if you are that 1 person who is 1000 times more sensitive to it? The incidence of this has not been studied with respect to PCE.

Bush is the worst president I have ever seen in terms of stopping / halting important scientific research that is necessary to make fully informed public policy decisions. I am not at all personally worried about PCE in the drinking water at levels up to the new standard but it is unimaginable to me that the standard was raised without completing the scientific research necessary to determine the impact on infants. It is horrific that this administration puts profit ahead of the health of our nations most vulnerable people, the newly born.

[NNadir]

11. I wrote about this horrible, horrible tragedy on another website.

Here's the link:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/viewtopic.php?topic=51631&forum=3

My post, the threadkiller apparently, which I am too depressed even to think about or to repeat, is the last one, number 18.

[XemaSab]

12. Thanks for the explanation

I seemed to recall from the hazy depths of my chemistry knowledge that perchlorate had other sources.

The upshot of NNadir's lengthy and well-researched post to Smirking Chimp is that perchlorate can be formed from many sources, among them the mixing of chlorine, such as that found in municipal water supplies, with ozone. It's not a "natural" source, but nevertheless a plausible source that does not involve widespread pollution on the part of defence contractors.