ORIGIN OF THE PERCHLORATE PROBLEM

The "discovery" of drinking water contaminated with the solid rocket fuel component perchlorate and the liquid rocket fuel component nitrosodimethylamine is a legacy of the Sewergate scandal of 1983. The principal figure in that affair was Rita Lavelle, head of the Superfund and former manager of the Aerojet Liquid Rocket Testing Facility in Rancho Cordova. The ion chromatography (IC) method used to measure perchlorate to a level of 200 parts-per-billion was available in 1983, although a lab technician in that year would have to wait an hour to get the results for perchlorate. Adjustments in IC plumbing and measurement time were made in 1986 so that the FBI Crime Lab could use the technique in criminal cases involving explosives.

As this new IC technology was being developed, a Superfund consent decree mandated an erratic, unreliable, and obsolete ion specific electrode method for monitoring parts-per-million perchlorate plumes that migrated off of the Aerojet Superfund site into Rancho Cordova. EPA investigators concerned about perchlorate in the San Gabriel Valley were told to turn their attention to more important problems. This allowed the perchlorate problem to remain undetected for a decade, and as a result some residents of the San Gabriel Valley were exposed to close to a 1-in-500 cancer risk from the liquid rocket fuel component nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) in their drinking water.

If perchlorate had been properly monitored in 1986, its detection in both Rancho Cordova and the San Gabriel Valley would have prevented the more dangerous drinking water exposures to NDMA from Lavelle's former Aerojet workplace. The week the existence of perchlorate in drinking water was first made public (March, 1997), the president of Aerojet announced his plans to retire and Mr. James Strock resigned. Strock was head of the California Environmental Protection Agency, and former head of the enforcement division of the US EPA (see http://www.strock-california.com/ ).

For information on the history of ion chromatography, contact Dr. Peter Jackson of Dionex Corporation in Sunnyvale, CA. For information on Sewergate and Aerojet, search for Rita Lavelle at http://rtk.net/E10049T609 .