[CPEO-MEF] NAS Perchlorate report

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The National Academy of Sciences public briefing on perchlorate will be 
webcast Tuesday, January 11, at 2 pm EST. For details, go to 
http://www.nas.edu.

I've learned today that my prediction
(http://www.cpeo.org/lists/military/2005/msg00022.html)
was right on target. The NAS panel is recommending a perchlorate 
reference dose that roughly translates into midway in the 6 ppb (parts 
per billion) to 40 ppb range, largely for the reasons that I laid out in 
my analysis.

While this looks like a numerical compromise between EPA's 1 ppb 
proposal and the 200 ppb number thrown around by the Defense Department 
and its contractors, I consider it a major victory for the polluters. 
Wherever this standard (around 25 ppb) is applied, most perchlorate 
contamination sites will be wiped off the map. Only the large rocket 
production, testing, and disposal facilities, as well as other 
perchlorate manufacturing sites, will be required to conduct cleanup. 
Wherever this standard is applied to drinking water, no treatment will 
be required, and it will be more difficult (but legally possible) for 
water suppliers that choose to be protective to recover their treatment 
costs.

Millions of children and pregnant women will continue to be guinea pigs 
in the great perchlorate exposure experiment, except that the experiment 
is unlikely to generate useful scientific results - because the most 
prevalent health impacts (associated with mental development) are 
difficult to measure.

The two states (Massachusetts and California) that are far along in 
setting perchlorate standards are already using the study favored by the 
 Academy. It's a short-term study of healthy adults. However, state 
toxicologists believe that there is a greater need to compensate for 
uncertainty in the extrapolation of the results of that study. 
Therefore, it's quite possible that they will stick to their initial 
conclusions and continue to recommend 1 ppb and 6 ppb respectively.

Personally, I'm concerned about the role that polluters and their 
political supporters have played in the scientific process, and 
frightened that this will set a precedent for future NAS reviews, such 
as the one being started on TCE. If EPA's draft toxicity assessment for 
TCE is ever turned into a promulgated standard, it could cost polluters, 
including the Defense and Energy Departments, even more than the 
initially proposed federal standard for perchlorate.

Lenny
--
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
http://www.cpeo.org


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