[CPEO-MEF] Keep perchlorate on the front burner

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

California
THE GILROY DISPATCH
Keep perchlorate on the front burner
By Tom Mulhern
Tuesday, August 26, 2003

“Pollution, pollution!
You can use the latest toothpaste,
And then rinse your mouth
With industrial waste.”

- from “Pollution” by Tom Lehrer

Back in 1965 when comedian/social critic Tom Lehrer performed a ditty
titled “Pollution,” he wasn’t looking 38 years into the future. The air,
water, and general environment of the 1960s were being ravaged at an
astonishing rate, if you count things like Lake Erie being declared
dead, various rivers catching on fire from all the petroleum effluent in
them, and the brown haze that passed for air in places like Los Angeles.
By 1970, there was enough public outcry to force the creation of the
Environmental Protection Agency.

Here in the South Valley, the perchlorate situation continues to
percolate, and for some reason a lot of people believe that the EPA will
set accurate baselines for what is safe, tell us whether the water is
drinkable, let us know if it will cause thyroid problems, and so on. And
then enforce them. This EPA? The current EPA? The one that now wants to
relax air pollution laws for power plants under the guise of routine
maintenance? The one that lied to New Yorkers for two years after
September 11 about the health risks of the PCBs, dioxin, and other
carcinogens they were inhaling? The EPA that’s part of an administration
that has done all it can (so far) to gut pollution controls, allow
greater leeway for the military to pollute at will (it was already the
biggest domestic polluter), and to drill holes anywhere the oil
companies want? You can probably tell that I just don’t get a warm,
fuzzy feeling about the EPA’s desire or ability to resolve our
perchlorate issue. Heck, they didn’t even want to set baselines for
what’s an acceptable level of perchlorate contamination, until pushed
really hard.

I do, however, have faith in local authorities such as the Santa Clara
Valley Water District and the Groundwater Resources Association of
California, since they’re nearer the situation. If it’s ultimately
established that 4 parts per billion really, truly is the safe exposure
level, and if cleaning up the current contamination in the groundwater
can reduce that level to the suggested 2 parts per billion (or less),
then we can consider ourselves in the clear ... and lucky.

Many parts of Silicon Valley, particularly Mountain View and Sunnyvale,
are on the EPA’s Superfund list, and remediation of leaks from companies
over the past three decades is an ongoing task. Like our neighbors to
the north, we will be dealing with the decontamination issue for quite a
while.

This article can be viewed at:
http://gilroydispatch.com/opinion/opinionview.asp?c=71629

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