Maybe I'm just paranoid, but the article insinuates this is an organic food problem. Scare tactics?
Sure am glad I invested in a countertop water distiller.

We bought a good water distiller 20 years ago.
I read where a person could have 40,000,000,000 atoms of mercury in just one cell of your body if they have had alagam teeth fillings for many years.

Chicken Little reporting

I would imagine rocket fuel propellants would stick out like a sore thumb, when organic food is being analyzed and the test results graphed. Typically they're looking for agricultural type chemical prints from commercial farming that finds it way on to organic farms.

While its not a surprise to find rocket fuel fallout in Fla., can anyone shed light on how it might be ending up in MD. and other places?

Wallops Island on Virginia's eastern shore was still firing off rockets for NASA the last time I checked. Doesn't Vandenberg AFB in CA do the same for the DOD? I knew that space exploration was in my blood but.....

This is an old story in California where traces of rocket fuel are found in aquifers long after production and/or use. At the time the story broke, the problem was associated with conventional lettuce production, especially head and romaine types. This is to be expected because organic greens account for less than 5% of all production of greens. That the chemicals would be reported in association with organic production is reasonable because the residue standards in organic production are more rigorous: less than 5% (five percent) of the EPA/FDA allowable levels. Organic produce above the allowable organic limit could be marketed as conventional unless it has also exceeded the maximum allowable.

So the spin on this story is a red herring.

Mudbug, will you be able to distill your lettuce & milk?

Here is another report without the anti-organic spin.

"Federal investigators have found traces of a rocket fuel component in milk and lettuce from Salinas to Cedarville, N.J., according to new government data.

Perchlorate was detected in about 90 percent of 128 lettuce samples and in all but three of the agency's 104 milk samples, but not at levels that prompted alarm at the Food and Drug Administration."

((snip))

"The FDA released data collected in the first eight months of 2004 on Friday.

Lettuce samples were collected at fields or packing sheds. Several types of lettuce tested showed average perchlorate levels between 7.76 parts per billion and 11.9 parts per billion.

Most milk samples were collected at grocery stores. The average level of perchlorate found in milk was 5.76 parts per billion.

Bottled water from retailers nationwide also was tested, but perchlorate contamination was so limited that it could not be measured in 49 of 51 samples.

The agency also is sampling tomatoes, carrots, cantaloupe and spinach, although those results were not immediately available."

Here is a link that might be useful: the bee

And another unspun report from EWG with links to other helpful reports.

Here is a link that might be useful: ewg

This is an article from the Arizona Water Resource about perchlorate from last year. It is not a recent problem to say the least, but it is a headache especially for the West.

Here is a link that might be useful: Article

While we don't drink milk I am interested in whether or not leakage is the only source of ground water contamination. Is there any information on airborne particulates? I water all the veggies with collected rainwater and wonder if perchlorates are in my tanks
Althea-thanks for the EWG link. That's been on my favorites list for awhile, but for some reason I didn't think to look there.

Now in Mother's Milk?....

Rocket Fuel Chemical Found in Breast Milk of Women in 18 States
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 24 February 2005
01:43 pm ET
Updated 3:38 p.m. ET

A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18 states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country.

The chemical, perchlorate, can impede adult metabolism and cause retardation in fetuses, among other things. It leaches into groundwater from various military facilities.

Previous studies have found perchlorate in drinking water, on lettuce, and in cows milk.

The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem than thought, scientists said.

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Texas Tech University researchers studied 36 samples of breast milk from women in 18 states and 47 samples cow's milk purchased from stores in 11 states. Every sample of breast milk contained perchlorate, as did all but one sample of dairy milk.

The highest levels were found in women from New Jersey, New Mexico, Missouri, Nebraska and California, in that order.
The results are detailed in the online version of Environmental Science & Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society. The work was led by Texas Tech biochemist Purnendu Dasgupta.

"We've got to come to grips with the perchlorate situation quickly,'' said California Senator Dianne Feinstein in a statement. "And EPA has to move quickly to set a national drinking water standard that protects the health and safety of all Americans.''

The details

Perchlorate occurs naturally and is also a primary ingredient in solid rocket fuel, munitions and fireworks. Perchlorate does not build up in human tissues over time, scientists say, but there has been speculation it could accumulate in breast milk.

In excess, the chemical can interfere with iodide uptake in the thyroid gland, disrupting adult metabolism and childhood development, scientists say.

In fetuses, it can potentially cause mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech, and motor skill deficits.

The average perchlorate concentration in breast milk samples was 10.5 micrograms per liter. The dairy milk average was 2.0 micrograms per liter. No definitive national standard exists, although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had suggested a limit of 1.0 micrograms per liter in drinking water.

The study also found that high levels of perchlorate in the breast milk samples were indeed related to low levels of iodide. Low iodide levels can inhibit thyroid function in nursing women. Scientists admit there is limited data, but Dasgupta and colleagues said the levels found in the study are "sufficiently low to be of concern."

They suggest that the recommended daily intake of iodine for pregnant and nursing women may need to be revised upward.

The report should not raise undue alarm, said Ed Urbansky, a former Environmental Protection Agency chemist who was not involved in the latest study.

"It's very difficult to determine what the findings might be other than to know it might be in so many milk samples,'' Urbansky said.

In your water

Perchlorate is in the drinking water of at least 11 million U.S. residents, other research has shown. The chemical is present in the Colorado river, which provides water to Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas and is used to irrigate 70 percent of the nation's lettuce crops, according to the Environmental Working Group, which studied the problem in 2003 in cooperation with scientists at Texas Tech.

An overview study of perchlorate released in January by the National Academies' National Research Council (NRC) tried to assess the risk, but scientists continue to argue about how much of the chemical is too much.

Also in January, a study out of Russia claimed children near Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, where rockets are launched, are twice as likely to require medical attention as other children in the region.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.