[CPEO-MEF] Connecting the perchlorate dots

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The Department of Defense (DOD) Readiness and Range Preservation
Initiative (RRPI), together with its resistance to stringent proposed
cleanup standards for perchlorate, may leave regulatory agencies
powerless to require remediation of contaminated water affecting
millions of Americans. That is, it is using its influence to delay
promulgation of a federal cleanup goal for perchlorate while attempting
to undermine the legal status of state standards.

Here's how I connect the dots:

1. DOD contends that it doesn't have to clean up perchlorate until there
is a promulgated standard. I know many regulators who disagree, but DOD
is likely to challenge them in court.

2. The Bush Administration is likely to delay promulgation of that
standard. Because the Defense Department and federal regulators are
required to speak publicly with one voice - a voice "harmonized" in the
White House - the Pentagon has enormous power to influence the
standard-setting process, a power not normally afforded other polluters.

3. Despite delays caused by contractor litigation, California is likely
promulgate a fairly stringent standard in early 2004. California suffers
from the nation's largest "epidemic" of groundwater and surface water
perchlorate contamination.

4. California's standard will be an Applicable or Relevant and
Appropriate Requirement (ARAR) where cleanup is conducted under the
Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act
(CERCLA, the Superfund law), and state standards might also apply under
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) Corrective Action or state
hazardous waste laws.

5. DOD's proposed RRPI language would limit the applicability of CERCLA
and RCRA at operational ranges and possibly many more sites. (Note that
Defense Department and state lawyers have a major disagreement over the
scope of the currently proposed language.)

6. At the House Armed Services Committee hearing March 13, 2003 U.S. EPA
Assistant Administrator John Peter Suarez said that the Safe Drinking
Water Act gives EPA the tools it needs to address groundwater issues at
sites that might be exempted from RCRA and CERCLA under the proposed
RRPI legislation. 

7. But the Safe Drinking Water Act does not recognize state standards!

8. Thus, DOD hopes to avoid full regulation of its perchlorate sites,
even if California and other states issue protective standards.

Lenny



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Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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