The Biden administration on Thursday said it would uphold a Trump-era decision and not impose limits in drinking water of perchlorate, a contaminant that has been linked to brain damage in infants. The announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency shocked public health advocates who had denounced the Trump administration in 2020 for opting not to regulate perchlorate. The chemical is a component in rocket fuel, ammunition and explosives ... The Trump administration had found that perchlorate did not meet the criteria for regulation because it did not appear in drinking water “with a frequency and at levels of public health concern.” Activists at the time accused the E.P.A. of disregarding science. After President Biden took office, the agency launched a review of the decision and on Thursday endorsed it, saying it was “supported by the best available peer-reviewed science.”
The E.P.A. said it would take other action, like setting up new monitoring tools and doing more to clean up contaminated sites, “to ensure that public health is protected from perchlorate in drinking water” ... Perchlorate can occur naturally, but high concentrations have been found in at least 26 states, often near military installations ... Research has shown that by interfering with the thyroid gland’s iodine uptake, perchlorate can stunt the production of hormones essential to the development of fetuses, infants and children ... The American Academy of Pediatrics, which had told the agency that perchlorate can cause a significant drop in the I.Q. of newborns and urged the “strongest possible” limits on the contaminant, declined to comment on Thursday.
Lisa Friedman
Lisa Friedman
March 31, 2022
“The EPA’s failure to protect drinking water from widespread perchlorate contamination is unscientific, unlawful, and unconscionable,” said Erik D. Olson, Senior Strategic Director for Health at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “The Trump EPA gave perchlorate a pass; it was a bad decision then, and it’s a bad decision now. Tap water across America will remain contaminated by this toxic chemical, which threatens the brain development of babies in the womb, infants, and young children at extremely low levels.” The Trump EPA relied on a deeply flawed analysis to select a “safe” perchlorate level that is 10 or more times higher than health-based limits set by state authorities who have evaluated the same data. EPA then compared levels of perchlorate in tap water to their unjustifiably high “safe” levels and said there are not [sic] a lot of systems exceeding safe levels, so there is no need for regulation of perchlorate. The agency relied primarily upon a two decade-old EPA snapshot of perchlorate levels in tap water and ignored other more recent data from USGS [United States Geological Survey] and others showing widespread perchlorate contamination ...
“The EPA’s failure to protect drinking water from widespread perchlorate contamination is unscientific, unlawful, and unconscionable,” said Erik D. Olson, Senior Strategic Director for Health at NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council). “The Trump EPA gave perchlorate a pass; it was a bad decision then, and it’s a bad decision now. Tap water across America will remain contaminated by this toxic chemical, which threatens the brain development of babies in the womb, infants, and young children at extremely low levels.” The Trump EPA relied on a deeply flawed analysis to select a “safe” perchlorate level that is 10 or more times higher than health-based limits set by state authorities who have evaluated the same data. EPA then compared levels of perchlorate in tap water to their unjustifiably high “safe” levels and said there are not [sic] a lot of systems exceeding safe levels, so there is no need for regulation of perchlorate. The agency relied primarily upon a two decade-old EPA snapshot of perchlorate levels in tap water and ignored other more recent data from USGS [United States Geological Survey] and others showing widespread perchlorate contamination ...
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The Defense Department (DOD) and its contractors are major users of perchlorate and there are innumerable DOD facilities where perchlorate pollution has been identified. DOD has opposed strict controls on perchlorate, in an apparent attempt to minimize its cleanup costs. Since perchlorate is unregulated, there is no federally required monitoring of tap water or requirement to inform a community of contamination. In 2011, the EPA formally decided that perchlorate should be regulated because it is toxic and widespread, with the drinking water of as many as 16 million people contaminated by the chemical. When the Agency failed to develop a standard by the deadline, NRDC sued, and then secured a court-approved consent decree requiring the EPA to issue a drinking water standard for perchlorate by 2019 ... NRDC agreed to extend the court-ordered deadline to 2020 when the Trump Administration asked for additional time. Ignoring the court order, the Trump EPA announced in 2020 that it was purporting to rescind the Obama finding that a standard should be set, contending that EPA’s 2008 health advisory for perchlorate in drinking water is far more protective of health than needed.
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NRDC sued the Trump EPA for refusing to set a standard; that case was held in abeyance with NRDC’s agreement when the Biden Administration said it would review the Trump Administration decision on perchlorate ... Massachusetts and California have set their own drinking water standards of 2 ppb to 6 ppb, respectively, because of inaction at the federal level. EPA now cites the reduction in levels of tap water contamination in those two states as a reason that no national standard is needed, refusing to address the widespread contamination in other states. EPA previously had found that as many as 16 million Americans’ tap water contains perchlorate, though it has not required national monitoring since a one-time snapshot done two decades ago. The Obama EPA found in 2011 that a perchlorate drinking water standard was needed to protect health from the endocrine disrupting chemical, especially that of vulnerable fetuses and young children. This finding triggered a legal duty to regulate perchlorate.
