(Sacramento)
Inland Valley residents called upon the State Department of Health
Services to strengthen its proposed drinking water standard for
perchlorate at a state hearing held yesterday to take public comment on
the state's proposed limit.
"As a longtime resident of Rialto,
I expect zero perchlorate in my drinking water and all responsible
parties held accountable," stated Daniel Lopez, a community member who
testified at the hearing.
The state's proposed standard of six
parts per billion would leave local residents and water officials
without its most powerful legal tool to force cleanup of more than half
of the area's polluted wells. Perchlorate- the major ingredient in
rocket fuel - was first discovered in the water supplies of the Inland
Valley in 1997. Nearly ten years later major polluters such as
Goodrich Corporation and Black & Decker still refuse to clean up
their mess.
Calls for a strengthened standard come on the heels
of a recent health study issued by the Centers for Disease Control that
found significant alterations in thyroid hormone levels in some women
exposed to perchlorate at levels well below the state's proposed
standard of six parts per billion.
Through inadequate industry
storage and disposal methods, perchlorate pollutes the drinking water
of millions of Californians. The epicenter of this contamination
crisis is Rialto - a small working class city - which has at one time
been forced to shut down a third of its water supply due to
contamination. Due to the lack of cleanup, pollution continues to
spread throughout the aquifer and residents continue to pay rate hikes
to pursue polluters and fund stop-gap cleanup measures.
Under
state statute, the California Department of Health Services is required
to consider the technical and economic feasibility of proposed drinking
water standards.
"The State of California owes its citizens clean
water," stated Sujatha Jahagirdar, Clean Water Advocate for Environment
California Research & Policy Center. "It is technically and
economically feasible and scientifically imperative that the state set
a standard no higher than one part per billion."
