[CPEO-MEF] Md. on battle line over water pollutant

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Md. on battle line over water pollutant
APG contaminates wells, agencies fight over limit
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By Lane Harvey Brown
Sun Staff
Originally published November 14, 2002

For weeks, high-level discussions between federal and state
environmental officials and the Defense Department have produced no
solutions about how to treat a Harford County town's contaminated
drinking water.

Military training exercises at Aberdeen Proving Ground, a key center for
Army testing and research, have left most of the city of Aberdeen's
wells tainted by perchlorate. The chemical, which is used as a
propellant, impairs thyroid function and is suspected of contributing to
developmental problems in fetuses, infants and young children.

As it negotiates cleanup of Aberdeen's wells, Maryland is being drawn
into a national dispute over perchlorate, a saltlike compound detected
in ground water in 21 other states from Massachusetts to California.

The major question facing states is this: How much perchlorate can
people safely ingest? The Environmental Protection Agency, the Maryland
Department of the Environment and the Defense Department have not
reached a consensus on the standard to be allowed.

So, states are setting their own advisory levels - with Maryland and
Massachusetts having the nation's lowest. The standard is critical in
Aberdeen and across the nation, because the lower the level allowed, the
higher the cleanup cost. It could push Defense Department spending into
the billions of dollars instead of millions.

But without an EPA-determined national limit for perchlorate in drinking
water, the military's response has been blunt: No standard, no cleanup

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.sunspot.net/news/local/harford/bal-te.md.perchlorate14nov14,0,32499.story?coll=bal-local-headlines

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