E.P.A. Plans New Limits on Toxic Chemicals in Drinking Water
New York Times
4 February 2011
By John M. Broder
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration said Wednesday that it would
impose limits on permissible levels of a new set of toxic chemicals in
drinking water, including the first standards for perchlorate, a
dangerous compound found in rocket fuel and fireworks that has
contaminated water supplies in 26 states.
The move, announced by the Environmental Protection Agency
administrator, Lisa P. Jackson, is a major step toward updating the
nation's clean water laws, which have lagged far behind environmental
and health science.
Studies have found that hundreds of industrial and agricultural
chemicals, including several known carcinogens, are present in
municipal water systems around the country. The nation's laws and
enforcement programs have not kept pace with spreading contamination,
posing significant health risks to millions.
Wednesday's decision to regulate perchlorate reversed a 2008 finding by
the Bush administration that a nationwide standard for the chemical was
unnecessary and would do little to reduce risks to human health.
Ms. Jackson announced her intent to review the nation's drinking water
standards a year ago, ordering an extensive review of the health
effects of perchlorate and other toxic substances found in city water
supplies. She announced on Wednesday that her agency would set
standards for as many as 16 other toxic and carcinogenic chemicals.
The agency said it would take three or four years to complete the
regulations.
"While we've put in place standards to address more than 90 drinking
water contaminants," Ms. Jackson said Wednesday in testimony before the
Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, "there are many more
contaminants of emerging concern, which science has only recently
allowed us to detect at very low levels."
Perchlorate can occur naturally, but high concentrations have been
found near military installations where it was used in rocket testing
and around places where fireworks, flares and solid propellants are
made. Researchers have found that it may impair the functioning of the
thyroid, potentially stunting the growth of fetuses, infants and
children.
The military contractors who use the chemical have balked at tighter
regulation, saying that substitutes are more expensive. But
environmentalists and officials of some municipal water services have
been calling for years for tighter rules on perchlorate and a number of
carcinogenic chemicals, including industrial and dry cleaning solvents.
The environmental agency has found measurable amounts of perchlorate in
26 states and two United States territories that it says could
contaminate the drinking water of anywhere from 5 million to 17 million
Americans. The Food and Drug Administration found the substance in more
than half the foods it tested, and health researchers have found traces
of it in samples of breast milk.
The agency did not establish an actual limit on the amount of
perchlorate allowable in drinking water, but set in motion a rulemaking
process to set a standard. Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of
California, chairwoman of the environment committee, and some
environmental advocates welcomed the announcement as a strong step for
public health and welfare.
But Rena Steinzor, a law professor at the University of Maryland and
president of the Center for Progressive Reform, was critical of the
E.P.A. for taking so long to decide to regulate perchlorate and for
what she called a "leisurely" timetable for issuing a final rule. The
agency said it would publish a proposed regulation within two years and
issue a final rule 18 months after that.
"Regulating perchlorate should not be seen as a long-term,
we'll-get-around-to-it goal, but an urgent public health priority," she
wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. Industries that use perchlorate said
the E.P.A.'s decision was not warranted because potential exposures to
the chemical were too low to threaten human health. The Perchlorate
Information Bureau, representing Lockheed Martin, Aerojet and other
industrial users, said that 13 states, spanning most of the sites of
perchlorate contamination, had already enacted some control policy,
making a national standard superfluous. The group said that a
regulatory rule-making process would be expensive and time-consuming,
with little or no public health benefit.
The E.P.A. also said on Wednesday that it would develop a single rule
governing a group of volatile organic compounds used as solvents,
including trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene, and a number of
other unregulated contaminants. By grouping them together, the
environmental agency can move more quickly and provide simpler guidance
to officials responsible for overseeing water supplies, agency
officials said.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
First published on February 4, 2011 at 12:01 am