Don't PUT LETTUCE ON THAT SANDWICH....!!!!!!
December 11, 2003 |
Pentagon: Rocket Fuel in Your Lettuce is Safe
Put down the salad fork and back away slowly. If you're eating lettuce grown in the
U.S. at this time of year, chances are it's dressed with more than vinaigrette.
Perchlorate, a rocket fuel additive, has been found to accumulate in leafy greens
irrigated from the Colorado River -- as nearly all the nation's winter lettuce is.[1]
Drinking water from the Colorado River and at least 22 states is contaminated with
the rocket fuel ingredient, a toxin that can impair thyroid function and cause
tumors, cancer and decreased learning ability in children.[2] The toxin has shown
up in milk too, from cows that drink perchlorate-tainted water.[3]
Since the rocket fuel chemical comes largely from military sites, cleaning it up
could cost the Defense Department billions. So the Pentagon has launched an
attack on a national drinking water standard proposed by the Environmental
Protection Agency, which would require cleanup of drinking water tainted with more
than 1 part per billion of perchlorate. The Pentagon argues it's a matter of
national security.
"Every additional layer of science-policy precaution ... comes at the expense of
the (Defense) Department's ability to acquire and test propulsion and weapons
systems," Air Force Col. Daniel Rogers said.[4]
To halt the EPA's perchlorate review process, the Bush Administration has decreed
that the issue needs further study and asked the National Academy of Sciences to
review the EPA proposal. The review is expected to take 15 months; the panel will
hold its second public hearing Dec. 12 and 13 in Irvine, Calif.[5]
"It's nothing but a stalling tactic. Perchlorate has been intensively studied for
more than 15 years, and the evidence keeps pointing to lower and lower levels as
hazardous to health," Bill Walker, West Coast vice president of Environmental
Working Group, tells BushGreenwatch. "We may not know everything we need to
know about perchlorate, but we know enough that we should set a drinking water
standard."
This is one environmental hazard that could hit President Bush where he lives.
Walker says geologists suspect that Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, may well get
its water from a reservoir contaminated by perchlorate from the nearby Naval
Weapons Industrial Reserve Plant.
CC |
