[CPEO-MEF] State's bid to regulate rocket fuel contamination delayed

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

[California]
State's bid to regulate rocket fuel contamination delayed

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A judge has delayed California's bid to become the
first state to set drinking water standards for amounts of a rocket fuel
ingredient that has polluted hundreds of wells, officials said Friday.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs ordered state
officials Thursday to submit a draft public health goal for the
pollutant, called perchlorate, to a second round of review by scientists

The level would be the amount the state considers safe to ingest but is
not a drinking water standard.

Under state law, that health goal was to be in place by Jan. 1 but will
now be delayed at least several months while the review takes place,
said Allan Hirsch, spokesman for the state Office of Environmental
Health Hazard Assessment.

Once completed, a second law requires California to translate that goal
into a drinking water standard by Jan. 1, 2004. That would make it the
first state in the nation to create such a regulation. That process,
which takes into consideration the cost and feasibility of meeting the
standard, will likely be delayed as well.

Since 1997, perchlorate has been found to contaminate 284 water sources
around California. It is also found in 19 other states, including
Nevada, where a plant leaches hundreds of pounds of perchlorate into
Lake Mead each day.

A draft goal for California, announced in March, recommended that
drinking water not contain more than 6 parts per billion of perchlorate.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/bayarea/news/4583845.htm

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