Got Rocket Fuel?
In Lubbock these days, they are growing the kids on milk laced with rocket fuel. It seems perchlorate, the explosive ingredient that gives rockets their get-up-and-go is not just for missiles anymore. You can find it in any grocery store in this South Plains city.
The news comes from a team of scientists at Texas Tech who published their findings recently in Environmental Science. The five scientists purchased different brands of milk at seven Lubbock-area supermarkets. The milk samples came from six different companies, effectively covering the available market. Four were packaged locally at the same plant and two at different plants outside Texas. Using two methods of analysis in separate labs, researchers discovered alarming levels of perchlorate in all seven samples tested. The concentrations ranged from 1.7 to 6.4 parts per billion. They also found perchlorate in one sample of breast milk, as well as in Lubbock’s drinking water, which had an average perchlorate concentration of 2.5 ppb.
All the amounts are higher than what reluctant federal regulators label as safe. The EPA has declared, in a draft standard in 2002, that an unsafe dosage is 1 ppb.
Perchlorate attacks the thyroid gland, and has been linked to a variety of cancers. The chemical dissolves easily in water. It poses the gravest threat to infants and fetuses. Too much exposure may cause neurological and other developmental damage, including autism.
The EPA has identified perchlorate releases in 20 states, including Texas. The problem began in the 1940s with the use of the chemical for rocketry. Since then, defense contractors and the armed forces have indiscriminately dumped the chemical while periodically flushing rocket fuselages. Cleaning the contamination will likely take hundreds of years and cost several billion dollars, according to the EPA.
Efforts to deal with the problem have been delayed by Pentagon intransigence, say environmentalists. Pentagon officials continue to insist that the chemical is not very dangerous. Behind the scenes, lobbying by Department of Defense officials has slowed EPA enforcement, stalling the setting of a strict standard for perchlorate contamination, says Bill Walker of the Environmental Working Group.
Walker says that since government regulators have been studying perchlorate, the numbers on what is a safe dosage have steadily gone down. He believes the present standard of 1 ppb should be lower to protect babies and fetuses. Yet the Bush Administration, rather than implement the EPA’s draft standard, has referred it to the National Academy of Science for further study. The NAS is expected to finish its review next year. Official EPA standards are not likely before 2008. “As a practical matter, it means the process is frozen,” says Walker.
While perchlorate contamination in the Waco area has been linked to a former Naval Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant, the Texas Tech scientists don’t know the origin of the perchlorate contamination they found in Lubbock. A previous study by the scientists demonstrated that cattle feed crops such as alfalfa can absorb and concentrate perchlorate to high levels. The researchers have also documented perchlorate contamination of field-grown wheat, soybeans, strawberries, and cucumbers.
Dr. Ernest Smith, an associate professor involved in the Texas Tech study, cautions that their survey is too small to determine the extent of the contamination. There is clearly the need for a definitive study, he says, but the money for a broad investigation of Texas and adjoining states is not available.
