[CPEO-MEF] PERCHLORATE, CLEANUP: "Blame the Pentagon"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[I can list a number of sites where the Defense Department is reluctant to conduct what I consider health-protective cleanups, but having followed these issue for more that 23 years, I don't agree with some of the assertions in this article. I don't know by what measure the Defense Department produces more hazardous waste than major chemical companies. The military is required to comply with major environmental laws, including those pertaining to cleanup. And the scope of significant perchlorate contamination at Defense facilities, as opposed to contractor facilities, turned out to be less that originally feared. The Department initially fought stringent perchlorate regulation, but more recently its criticism has been muted. - LS]

Blame the Pentagon
The U.S.’s Grossly Corrupt Health Protection System

by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and JOSHUA FRANK
Counterpunch
Weekend Edition February 15-17, 2013

The nation’s biggest polluter isn’t a corporation. It’s the Pentagon. Every year the Department of Defense churns out more than 750,000 tons of hazardous waste - more than the top three chemical companies combined.

Yet the military remains largely exempt from compliance with most federal and state environmental laws, and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Pentagon’s partner in crime, is working hard to keep it that way.

For the past five decades the federal government, defense contractors and the chemical industry have joined forces to block public health protections against perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel that has been shown to effect children’s growth and mental progress by disrupting the function of the thyroid gland which regulates brain development.

Perchlorate has been leaking from literally hundreds of defense plants and military installations across the country. The EPA has reported that perchlorate is present in drinking and groundwater supplies in 35 states. Center for Disease Control and independent studies have also overwhelmingly shown that perchlorate is existent in our food supplies, cow’s milk, and human breast milk. As a result virtually every American has some level of perchlorate in their body.


…

For the entire article, see
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/15/the-u-s-has-a-grossly-corrupted-health-protection-system/

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
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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