[CPEO-MEF] Military vows to help clean up perchlorates

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California
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE
Military vows to help clean up perchlorates
POLLUTION: Officials hail an agreement to deal with pollution of Inland
water supplies.
By IMRAN GHORI
07/12/2003

RANCHO CUCAMONGA - A top Pentagon official promised Friday that the
Department of Defense will provide money and technological assistance to
clean up perchlorate-tainted water in the Inland Empire.

Sen. Nell Soto, D-Pomona, and water officials hailed the agreement as a
historic breakthrough in getting the federal government to help solve
the pollution of hundreds of wells.

Perchlorate, linked to thyroid disorders, has contaminated more than 300
wells in California, including drinking water supplies serving Redlands,
Rialto and Riverside. The military is one of the primary consumers of
perchlorate, used in munitions and solid-fuel rockets.

Perchlorate also has tainted the Colorado River, which 20 million people
rely on for drinking and irrigation water in California, Arizona and
Nevada.

The two-paragraph agreement, signed by Soto, three water agency heads
and John Paul Woodley Jr., assistant deputy under secretary of defense
for environment, states that the parties will assemble "technical,
financial, environmental and legislative resources" to solve the
problem.

A memorandum of understanding with more details will be put together in
the next few weeks.

"The Department of Defense is committing to being part of the solution,"
Woodley said at the meeting.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_NEWS_nperc12.57e34.html

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