SACRAMENTO, CA — The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment will review in 2009 the public health goal for perchlorate in drinking water, a review which could lead to setting a new drinking water standard for the substance, according to a December 28 Redlands Daily Facts article.
Perchlorate has been used as an ingredient in rocket fuel, explosives and some fertilizers, and past disposal practices have caused it to enter some groundwater supplies. It inhibits the thyroid gland from the necessary function of absorbing iodide from the bloodstream.
Perchlorate already is a regulated drinking water contaminant in California, with a state maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 6 micrograms per liter (µg/L), or 6 parts per billion, a standard that became effective October 18, 2007. There is no federal MCL for perchlorate, and it appears that the US Environmental Protection Agency is in the final stages of deciding not to set a federal perchlorate standard.
The Redland Daily Facts was reporting about an e-mail it received from Sam Delson, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment’s deputy director for external and legislative affairs.
Environmentalists, who have said that the earlier public health goal of 6 parts per billion was too high, welcomed the news. “We’re happy, but really how happy we will remain depends on what number they end up with and how long it takes them to get there,” Renee Sharp, director of the nonprofit Environmental Working Group’s California office said in the article.
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