[CPEO-MEF] PERCHLORATE: Seeking the source in Barstow, CA

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Former fireworks maker suspected in Barstow's water contamination


By DAVID DANELSKI
Riverside Press-Enterprise
December 3, 2010

A former fireworks company has emerged as the potential source of a 
chemical that last month contaminated public water supplies in the 
Barstow area, making tap water undrinkable there for as many 40,000 
people for several days, say state water quality control officials.

The Mojave River Pyrotechnics Co. closed its doors in Barstow in the 
mid-1980s, but records kept by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 
showed that it had received shipments of perchlorate, an explosive salt 
used to make fireworks, ammunition and solid-state rocket fuels, say 
state officials.

The company had operated near a drinking-water well in north Barstow 
that last month was found to be producing water with 100 parts per 
billion of perchlorate -- more than 16 times the allowable limit for 
drinking water. And tap water at the Marine Corps Logistics Base, just 
east of Barstow, was found to have perchlorate at more than three times 
the legal limit of 6 parts per billion.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.pe.com/localnews/stories/PE_News_Local_D_barstow03.492f0b6.html

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
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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