Brain-damaging chemicals used in rocket fuel, fireworks and matches don't belong in our drinking water. Tell the EPA: Protect our health from rocket fuel chemicals. |
This should be common sense, Anonymous:
Chemicals used in rocket fuel have no business being in our drinking water.
But the Trump administration's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just dropped plans to limit perchlorate, commonly used in rocket fuel, fireworks and matches, in our water. To make matters worse, this chemical has been linked to brain damage in infants.1
Tell the EPA: Get rocket fuel chemicals out of our drinking water.
Perchlorate enters our water via runoff from soil, and contamination has been found at sites involved in the manufacture of ammunition and rocket fuel.2 In 2011, the Obama administration announced it would regulate the chemical after the EPA found that it was contaminating the drinking water of up to 16 million Americans.3
According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, exposure to perchlorate can damage the development of fetuses and children and cause measurable drops in IQ in newborns. That's why, this past August, the group urged the EPA to go even further and adopt the "strongest possible limits" on perchlorate in drinking water.4
Instead, under the Trump administration, the EPA decided to drop plans to regulate this rocket fuel chemical altogether -- a move that could put millions of infants and children at risk of brain damage.
The EPA is supposed to protect the health of American families. We're calling on the EPA to live up to its mission by setting health-based limits on perchlorate in drinking water.
Thank you,
Faye Park
President
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1. Ellen Knickmeyer, "EPA drops regulation for contaminant linked to infant brain damage," PBS NewsHour, June 18, 2020.
2. "Technical Fact Sheet - Perchlorate," United States Environmental Protection Agency, November 2017.
3. Ellen Knickmeyer, "US drops planned limit for toxin that damages infant brains," ABC News, June 18, 2020.
4. Ellen Knickmeyer, "US drops planned limit for toxin that damages infant brains," ABC News, June 18, 2020.
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