By SETH BORENSTEIN

KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON - A chemical used in rocket fuel that's been found in the drinking water of more than 11 million Americans nationwide likely doesn't need to be removed because it is 20 times safer than environmental regulators for the Bush administration fear, a federal panel of scientists recommended late Monday.

But the scientists said that perchlorate - which is also found in fireworks and road flares - is nowhere near as safe as the Pentagon and the defense and aerospace industries have been telling Americans for years.

The National Academy of Sciences was called in to referee the dispute over the safety of the chemical. On one side were the strict standards proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency and several states; on the other were the Defense Department, the Department of Energy, NASA and industry, which called for standards considerably more lenient. The academy settled on a middle range of what levels of contamination are acceptable, and that appears to be a big win for industry.

The White House was evaluating the report on Monday but had no initial problems with it. "The national academy is the gold standard of independent scientific review," White House science spokesman Bob Hopkins said. "We respect the findings of this report."

The academy's proposed safe level for perchlorate is high enough that the vast majority of the 250 areas with tainted water won't have to do anything. This would save the Pentagon and defense and aerospace industry billions of dollars in potential cleanup costs.

Perchlorate, a compound that keeps iodide from being absorbed by the body, has been found to damage fetuses and infants and could lessen brain development and lead to attention deficit disorder. The Food and Drug Administration has found it in grocery stores' milk, according to a study last year.

R. Thomas Zoeller, a key scientist who advised the EPA, and an environmental group said the academy's study set the level too high to protect public health. And the environmental group, Natural Resources Defense Council, charged the Pentagon and White House tried to influence the academy study to keep the cost of cleanups to a minimum - a complaint the White House and the academy denied.

The proposed safe dose level proposed by the academy "lets industry off the hook for cleanup and a lot of liability," said Jennifer Sass, senior scientist for the council.

The head of the defense industry's perchlorate study group didn't return several calls for comment. Rick Pleus, a scientist funded by the industry group, said he was assessing the report but was pleased by an early reading of the findings.

The academy said the safe dose level for perchlorate is about 20 times higher than the EPA proposed in a 2002 rule. Still, that level is up to 14 times lower than defense industry-sponsored studies say is safe.

The academy's level "should protect the health of even the most sensitive population," said Dr. Richard Johnston Jr., chairman of the panel and a pediatrics professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

In 2002, the EPA proposed a safe drinking water standard of no more than 1 part of perchlorate per 1 billion parts of drinking water. The academy's recommendation would translate to about 20 parts per billion. The defense industry has argued for a level of 200 to 350 parts per billion.

California, which has a pervasive perchlorate pollution problem, has set a drinking-water standard of 6 parts per billion, but it's considering increasing that to one nearer to academy levels. Massachusetts, Maryland and New Mexico have proposed levels of 1 part per billion levels. New York permits a range of 5 to 18 parts per billion. Nevada has the highest state level, with 18.

The median level of perchlorate pollution in the United States is 6.4 parts per billion, with Jacksonville, Fla., reaching 200 parts per billion, according to the academy study.

According to Johnston, it isn't possible to measure perchlorate contamination at less than 4 parts per billion. And 96 percent of America's water systems have levels below that.

Before the national academy released its report Monday, the Natural Resources Defense Council accused the Pentagon and White House of trying to lobby the academy and change its study. The council relied on more than 30 boxes of documents it received through the Freedom of Information Act, but much of the documents were redacted, so the group based most of its charges on e-mail subject lines between Bush administration officials.

Council attorney Erik Olson called it "a full-scale assault by the Pentagon and its contractors."

"There's absolutely no basis for those claims," White House science spokesman Hopkins said. "This is an attempt to distort the science by attacking the process." ____________________________________________________________________________

>From Reuters News Service
Some Levels of Rocket Fuel Pollution Safe -Report
Jan 10, 2005

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some levels of rocket fuel pollution are safe, but not as much as industry had argued, a National Academy of Sciences committee said on Monday.

At least two environmental groups accused the government of trying to influence the report's findings, but disagreed on whether the attempts had succeeded.

The pollutant from rocket fuel, a chemical called perchlorate, can affect thyroid function. There are no federal limits on how much is safe but independent groups have said the chemical could, in theory, affect developing babies.

The Academy's National Research Council, which advises the government on scientific and environmental matters, was asked by the Department of Defense, NASA and other agencies to review evidence that perchlorate in drinking water or food crops was harmful and if so, how much was safe.

Its report says people could drink up to up to 0.0007 milligrams per kilogram of body weight without harm -- about 20 times more than the 'reference dose' proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The National Academy of Sciences report said perchlorate had been discovered in 35 states since 1997 and more than 11 million people have "perchlorate in their drinking water at concentrations of 4 parts per billion or higher."

It also said that although there is clear evidence the chemical can dampen thyroid function, leading to a serious condition called hypothyroidism, there was not enough evidence to show it could lead to thyroid cancer, as the EPA has suggested.

The committee said the EPA would have to seek more data on the effects of perchlorate on children before setting any standards.

The environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council challenged the report even before it was issued, saying the authors had been influenced by the Pentagon and defense contractors and it had evidence to prove it.

"This recommendation confirms our fear -- that the White House, Pentagon and its contractors were able to unduly influence the academy," said NRDC lawyer Erik Olson.

"We've never seen such a brazen campaign to pressure the National Academy of Sciences to downplay the hazards of a chemical, but it fits the pattern of this administration manipulating science at the expense of public health."

Another organization, the Environmental Working Group, said it was "no secret" that government agencies tried to manipulate the report but that it would accept the panel's findings.

"This decision today clearly falls on the side of the levels the regulators already said rather than absurdly high levels the Pentagon was touting," said the group's Bill Walker.

Members of the Academy panel, which included pediatricians, experts on thyroid function and toxicologists, said they relied heavily on studies that tested perchlorate in humans as opposed to animal studies.

"The government had no influence over the conduct or outcome of this study," said William Colglazier, executive officer of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Research Council.

Bob Hopkins, spokesman for the White House's Office of Science and Technology policy, also denied the government tried to influence the committee.

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