Feinstein, Boxer pen EPA
to issue perchlorate advisory

By Emmett Berg, Bay City News Service

October 9, 2006

U.S. Senators Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer called upon the federal Environmental Protection Agency on Friday to issue a health advisory on the adverse health effects of perchlorate exposure, and to establish tougher standards on what constitutes safe drinking water.

"We are writing to request...a perchlorate health advisory that addresses early life exposures and susceptibility issues and revise the Agency's perchlorate cleanup goal," stated a letter to the EPA authored by Boxer and Feinstein.

Perchlorate is used in the creation of rocket fuel and ammunition. It can seep through soil and collect in food or water, the senators reported.

The senators said fast action was of importance because of the findings of a recent study on perchlorate by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"The CDC study showed that perchlorate exposures that EPA thought were safe, can threaten public health," according to the senators. In their letter, the senators cited a 2005 Government Accountability Office study that reported the existence of 106 sites in California with perchlorate levels above 4 parts per billion. And the senators' letter stated that "California knows of 276 active or standby water wells are contaminated with perchlorate."

No one from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or the California Environmental Protection Agency, was immediately available for reaction.

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