[CPEO-MEF] Cancerous Rocket Toxins in our Water

[CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>]

The following was posted by Adrienne Anderson <Andersa@colorado.edu>
__________________________________________________________

Following is a Rocky Mountain News story on Lockheed Martin’s proposed
discharge permit,
for poisons the Colorado Health Department has been allowing released
into a water supply
now serving Denver, Highlands Ranch and Englewood, and other
neighborhoods in the
metro Denver area.  CDPHE has been allowing discharges of this potent
carcinogen at
levels 5,000 times higher than what the State of California allows for
its citizens.  Records
searched show that the State of Colorado’s health department has known
since 1956 -
nearly 50 years – hat this rocket plant was poisoning drinking water
sources downhill from
the 5,400 acre defense contractor, yet has granted them permits to
continue dumping even
the most dangerous of the poisons found there into water supplies being
used for public
consumption.

This story is by a business writer at the RMN, Roger Fillion.

Adrienne Anderson

Environmental Studies Program Joyce Pettit <pettitsv@worldnet.att.net>
University of Colorado at Boulder
CB 339
Boulder-Colorado 80309-0339

Colorado
ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS
Water discharge plan sparks debate
Proposal would cut amount of chemical Lockheed can release
By Roger Fillion
November 20, 2003

A plan by state health officials to cut the amount of a cancer-causing
chemical Lockheed
Martin can discharge in Jefferson County is sparking controversy.

The plan - which will get a public hearing tonight - could have an
impact on the quality of
Denver-area drinking-water supplies.

Some neighborhood residents and environmentalists say the proposed
discharge permit for
Lockheed doesn't go far enough. The permit would apply to a chemical
called
n-Nitrosodimethylamine, or NDMA, and its presence in treated wastewater
near Lockheed's
rocket-making operations in Waterton Canyon.

Critics charge that the company gets too much leeway to back off from
the proposed
standard and that regulators failed to lay out a speedy timetable for
compliance.

"This permit is nothing more than a veneer to attempt to placate public
concern," said
Denver resident Adrienne Anderson, an instructor in the environmental
studies program at
the University of Colorado.

State health regulators, she added, hope people won't read the "fine
print" in the plan.
"And the fine print is that they won't force the company to implement
the lower levels,"
Anderson said.

Others say it will be tough for Lockheed to test for NDMA at the lower
standard, and that
the company needs flexibility.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_2442368,00.html

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