Healthy soil and sustainable growing

["TradingPostPaul" <tradingpost@riseup.net>]

Rocket Fuel in Lettuce
http://www.ewg.org/reports/rocketlettuce/

Eating lettuce or other vegetables grown in fields irrigated by the
Colorado River may expose consumers to toxic pollutants

Eating lettuce or other vegetables grown in fields irrigated by the
Colorado River may expose consumers to a larger dose of toxic rocket fuel
than is considered safe by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
according to test data and documents obtained by Environmental Working
Group (EWG).

Map of Imperial Valley

Test results never before made public show that leafy vegetables grown with
contaminated irrigation water take up, store and concentrate potentially
harmful levels of perchlorate, a thyroid toxin that is the explosive main
ingredient of rocket and missile fuel.

Sworn depositions and other courtroom documents show that the giant
aerospace and defense contractor Lockheed Martin — a major user of
perchlorate responsible for widespread contamination of Southern California
water supplies — knew as early as 1997 that vegetables stored high
concentrations of the chemical, but said nothing to the EPA or state health
officials. [PDF documents: Lockheed letter | Test results] Since most
perchlorate-related work by defense contractors is done for the U.S.
military, the Department of Defense may also have known, but said nothing
to warn other agencies, consumers — or farmers whose crops, through no
fault of their own, may be tainted by contaminated irrigation water.

If the perchlorate levels reported here are confirmed by further testing,
immediate government action will be needed to reduce perchlorate in lettuce
and other vegetables. In the interim, we strongly recommend that the Food
and Drug Administration immediately begin testing lettuce and selected
other vegetables grown with Colorado River water for perchlorate, and that
the results of this testing be made public as soon as they are confirmed.

In addition, any grower who is adversely affected by perchlorate
contamination of their crops should be fully compensated for any and all
economic losses to their farming operations and property values.
Perchlorate in food could threaten human health

In a front-page story on Dec. 16, 2002, The Wall Street Journal reported
that “tests on several vegetable samples from a perchlorate-contaminated
farm in Redlands found the plants concentrated perchlorate from local
irrigation water by an average factor of 65, according to calculations by
Renee Sharp of the Environmental Working Group in Oakland, Calif., one of
the few nonprofit groups focused on perchlorate contamination. That means
the perchlorate dose in the vegetables was 65 times the amount in the
water.” Sharp told the Journal: “If people are eating it, on top of
drinking it, the EPA will have to lower its proposed drinking-water
standard substantially.” [Read the story (broken link)]

Perchlorate, which impairs the thyroid’s ability to take up iodide and
produce hormones critical to proper fetal and infant brain development, has
contaminated almost 300 drinking water sources and farm wells in California
and an unknown number of sources in at least fifteen other states. Sources
known to be contaminated include the Colorado River from near Las Vegas to
the Mexican border — the primary or sole source of irrigation water for
farms in California, Arizona and Nevada that grow the great majority of the
lettuce sold in the U.S. during winter months.

If the perchlorate concentrations shown in the test results obtained by EWG
and cited by the Journal affect the entire Colorado River winter vegetable
crop, it would have huge implications for current efforts to set safety
standards for exposure to perchlorate. It would signal that decades of
negligence by chemical manufacturers, the aerospace industry and the U.S.
military have contaminated not only the drinking water of millions of
Americans, but their food supplies as well.

Both the EPA and the state of California are working toward establishing
standards for perchlorate in drinking water. Under state law, California is
supposed to set a standard by January 2004, although progress has been
delayed by a lawsuit filed by St. Louis-based Lockheed Martin and
Kerr-McGee Corp. of Oklahoma City, which until 1998 manufactured the
chemical at a now-closed plant near Las Vegas that is a main source of
contamination of the Colorado River. (The sole remaining U.S. producer of
perchlorate is American Pacific Corp. of Las Vegas; until 1988 its plant,
now in Cedar City, Utah, was near Kerr-McGee’s in Nevada.) EPA says it
doesn’t plan to adopt national standards for perchlorate in drinking
water until at least 2006, although both local and state elected officials
in California — where more contaminated sources are discovered almost
weekly — are calling for faster federal action.

But the newly revealed test data suggest that vegetables from the Imperial
Valley region of California and Arizona, which produces most of the
nation’s lettuce sold nationwide from November to March, may be a more
significant source of perchlorate exposure than drinking water.

In a 1999 study, the EPA’s National Environmental Research Lab grew
lettuce seedlings in perchlorate-contaminated water and found that
“perchlorate was accumulated in the leaves to significant levels” —
by factors of 100 times or more. (Susarla et al. 1999.) The tests showed
that lettuce was able to take up and store 95 percent of the perchlorate in
the water. This extraordinarily high rate of bioaccumulation would mean
that lettuce grown in water with even low levels of perchlorate could
deliver large doses of the toxin to consumers — doses far higher than the
EPA’s provisional drinking water standard.

But EPA discounted the results of the 1999 tests because the water used was
contaminated with concentrations of perchlorate much higher than are
typically found in water supplies, and because the lettuce seedlings were
grown in greenhouses and harvested before maturity. Another 1999 lab study
found that a variety of native (non-crop) plants took up perchlorate from
water, a potential biological aid to remediating s oil and water
contaminated by the chemical. (Bacchus et al. 1999.) Despite the troubling
results of these studies and the absence of data on perchlorate in U.S. or
imported produce, the EPA concluded that “the available information ...
suggests that foods do not contribute to” perchlorate accumulation in the
human body. (EPA 2002.)

To close the data gaps, in April 1999 the EPA convened an “eco-summit”
whose attendees included the Air Force; a coalition of perchlorate
manufacturers and users, including Lockheed Martin, called the Perchlorate
Study Group; and five Indian tribes who are major producers of winter
vegetables irrigated by the Colorado River. The year before, at a
perchlorate forum in Henderson, Nev., the environmental manager for the
Yuma, Ariz., Quechan tribe stated:

    “Irrigation is a way of life for our people. We have 13,000 acres
dedicated to the production of lettuce. We produce annually eight heads of
lettuce for every man, woman and child [in the United States]. That food is
produced from Colorado River water and 23 million people derive their water
supply from the lower Colorado River in three states and two countries.
That’s how big this problem is.” (Rogers 1998.)

At the “eco-summit,” top priority was given to a “real-world” study
that would test a variety of crops through the Department of Agriculture,
and the Department of Defense provided $650,000 to fund it and other
studies. EPA, USDA and the Food and Drug Administration developed an
extensive protocol for the study — before deciding it was too expensive
and postponing it indefinitely.

Instead, the Air Force decided it would pay for a second study of
greenhouse-grown lettuce. The findings of this second study have never been
made public. In 2000, responding to a Freedom of Information Act request by
a California public-interest law firm for “All materials related to any
investigation or research conducted by, or for, any U.S. Government Agency,
regarding the health effects of perchlorate on humans beings and the
environment,” the Air Force provided some material, but nothing on either
of the lettuce studies. The Air Force stated that those and other records
"are fully exempt from disclosure until the formally sponsored EPA peer
review is complete. They contain information that is exempt under the
deliberative process privilege.” The EPA-sponsored peer review of
proposed perchlorate standards is now complete, but the lettuce studies
remain unreleased.

In October 2002, at a water industry-sponsored perchlorate conference in
Ontario, Calif., Air Force spokesman Dave Mattie was asked about the second
greenhouse lettuce study before a group that included regional EPA
officials. Mattie replied that the study had been completed, but “someone
walked away with the data.” When asked why the the “real world” study
of vegetables grown with Colorado River water had been cancelled, Mattie
again said it was for lack of funds.

But unknown to the EPA, there had in fact been a “real world” study of
lettuce grown with perchlorate-contaminated water in 1997 — two years
before the "eco-summit" at which such a study had been made a priority. And
Lockheed Martin, a key member of the Perchlorate Study Group, was
intimately aware of its results. Since the Air Force has worked closely
with Lockheed Martin and other members of the Perchlorate Study Group on a
number of perchlorate research projects — including unethical tests on
human subjects (broken link) — the U.S. military may have known of these
earlier lettuce tests as well.

Lockheed Martin is responsible for polluting dozens of water supplies in
the Redlands area of San Bernardino County, Calif., with high levels of
perchlorate and other chemicals. A class action lawsuit has been brought
against the company by more than 800 residents of the area, who blame
contaminated drinking water for a variety of health problems including
cancer. Farms in the area are not irrigated by the Colorado River, but draw
from wells that have been contaminated by perchlorate plumes from
now-abandoned Lockheed facilities.

Lawyers at Engstrom, Lipscomb and Lack in Los Angeles, who represent the
Redlands residents suing Lockheed Martin, learned that the company had
earlier been in negotiation with Lucky Farms, a San Bernardino grower of
lettuce and other vegetables, over contamination of the farm’s water
supply. The lawyers subpoenaed all materials from the negotiations, and
have discovered that Lockheed was sitting on startling evidence of
vegetables’ uptake and concentration of perchlorate.

The subpoenaed documents, obtained by EWG from the lawyers, showed that in
late 1997 and early 1998, Lucky Farms conducted a series of tests on its
produce to see if they were contaminated with perchlorate. [PDF documents:
Lockheed letter | Test results] These tests were conducted on four samples
of “leafy vegetables” and four samples of some kind of “vegetable
matter” which was not identified.

The results of the testing were dramatic: The four "leafy vegetable"
samples averaged 4,490 micrograms of perchlorate per kilogram (ug/kg), with
a maximum concentration of 6,900 ug/kg. Perchlorate levels in the
“vegetable matter” were lower, averaging 213 ug/kg with a high of 420
ug/kg. Overall, the vegetables were found to have an average of more than
2,600 micrograms of perchlorate per kilogram — thousands of times higher
than what the EPA considers to be a safe amount in a liter of water.
Although there is currently no federal drinking water standard for
perchlorate, the EPA’s proposed “reference dose,” which is what the
agency considers the level that is safe to consume each day, is just one
microgram per liter of water or two micrograms per day for an adult.

Despite the startling results, Lucky Farms was somehow persuaded not to
bring legal action against Lockheed Martin. However, there was one
significant result. Since at least 1995, farm workers living and working on
Lucky Farms property were required to sign a form stating that they had
been warned of the dangers of drinking irrigation water. [View document]
But after perchlorate was found in the water (and vegetables) in 1997, the
forms were amended to include a more specific warning: "This water may
cause cancer or birth defects.”

According to EWG’s analysis, if a pregnant woman were to eat a typical
serving of vegetables with the contamination level found at Lucky Farms,
she would get a dose of rocket fuel more than 100 times higher than the EPA
considers safe in a liter of drinking water. (Figure 1.) One sample of
“leafy vegetables” contained 386 micrograms of perchlorate per one-cup
serving, and the average amount of perchlorate in the vegetable samples was
146 micrograms per two-ounce serving.

figure 1

According to other documents acquired by Engstrom, Lipscomb and Lack, the
perchlorate concentration found in the five wells on Lucky Farms’
property ranged from 10 to 130 parts per billion (ppb) and averaged 40.1
ppb. Because it is not known which wells were used to irrigate which
samples it is difficult to calculate exactly how much each of the tested
vegetables concentrated perchlorate, but using average figures for the
amount of perchlorate found in the wells and the vegetables, EWG analysis
shows that the vegetables concentrated perchlorate by a factor of 65. This
means that perchlorate levels in the vegetables were on average 65 times
higher than the levels in the water.

Such results are consistent with the high concentrations of perchlorate
that have been found in non-crop plants growing in contaminated areas. (EPA
2002.) But the data has profound implications for future perchlorate
drinking water standards — as well as for anyone who eats Imperial Valley
lettuce.

The lower Colorado River is used to irrigate an estimated 1.46 million
acres of farmland in California and Arizona. Water is distributed from the
Colorado River to the nearby Imperial Valley of California and southwestern
Arizona via extensive irrigation canals. It is used to grow a variety of
crops including cotton, alfalfa, lettuce, wheat, citrus, barley, melons,
dates, grapes, avocados, tomatoes, onions, carrots and cauliflower. (CRWUA
2002.)

Of particular concern for perchlorate accumulation is a high water content
crop like lettuce (which requires three acre-feet of water per acre). In
Imperial County, CA, 20,000 acres of iceberg lettuce and 10,500 acres of
leaf lettuce were harvested in 1999. (Imperial County 2002.) That year,
45,000 acres of wintertime head lettuce, 5,300 acres of leaf lettuce and
9,300 acres of Romaine lettuce were harvested in Yuma County, AZ. (UA
Extension 2002.)

EPA and the state of California are in the process of developing drinking
water standards for perchlorate, and both are required to consider sources
of exposure other than drinking water. The preliminary research on
vegetable uptake of perchlorate strongly suggests that food is likely to be
an equal or greater source for perchlorate, but so far this hasn’t been
reflected in the proposed drinking water standards of either agency.

California’s latest draft public health goal (PHG) of 2 to 6 parts per
billion (ppb) assumes that 80 percent of a person’s exposure to
perchlorate comes through drinking water. (OEHHA 2002.) EPA has calculated
a “drinking water equivalent level“ of 1 ppb for their most recent
proposed reference dose (RfD), but has not yet considered the issue of
relative source contribution in calculations of a proposed drinking water
standard. (EPA 2002.) If vegetables irrigated with Colorado River water are
in fact concentrating perchlorate, the drinking water standards will have
to be substantially lower to account for the considerable exposure coming
from food.

If Lockheed-Martin’s perchlorate is indeed contaminating crops to unsafe
levels, FDA will have to take emergency action to keep the food off the
market. And the growers will have to be compensated for damage to their
farming operations and property values.
Recommendations

If the perchlorate levels reported here are confirmed by further testing,
immediate government action will be needed to reduce perchlorate in lettuce
and other vegetables. In the interim, we recommend that the Food and Drug
Administration begin immediately testing lettuce and selected other
vegetables grown with Colorado River water for perchlorate, and that the
results of this testing be made public as soon as they are confirmed.

In addition, any grower who is adversely effected by perchlorate
contamination of their crops should be fully compensated for any and all
economic losses to their farming operations and property values.
References

   1. Bacchus, S.T., S. Susarla, L. Wolfe, G. Harvey, and S.C. McCutcheon.
Predicting field performance of herbaceous species for phytoremediation of
perchlorate. Paper presented at the August 22-26, 1999 meeting of the
American Chemical Society.
   2. CRWUA 2002. Colorado River Water Users Association. www.crwua.org.
   3. Environmental Protection Agency. 2002. Perchlorate Environmental
Contamination: Toxicological Review and Risk Characterization. External
Review Draft. January 16, 2002.
   4. Imperial County 2002. Agricultural Commissioners Report for 1999.
   5. Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. 2002. Draft Public
Health Goal for Perchlorate in Drinking Water. California Environmental
Protection Agency. December, 2002.
   6. Rogers, Keith, 1998. Chemical’s effect on crops worries tribes. Las
Vegas Review-Journal. May 20, 1998.
   7. Susarla, A., N.L. Wolfe and S.C. McCutcheon. Perchlorate uptake in
lettuce seedlings. Paper presented at the August 22-26, 1999 meeting of the
American Chemical Society.
   8. UA Extension 2002. University of Arizona Cooperative Extension.
http://ag.arizona.edu/crops/counties/yuma


Related News:

    * State Working on Perchlorate Limit
      San Bernardino County Sun | August 30, 2007
    * Too Much Rocket Fuel in Boston Breast Milk
      Bostonist.com | June 8, 2007
    * Jet Fuel Additive May Be In Food Supply
      WISN TV Milwaukee ABC | May 15, 2007
    * Perchlorate Pending
      Chemical and Engineering News | May 14, 2007
    * Perchlorate debate is heating up
      San Gabriel Valley Tribune | May 7, 2007