EPA Caves in to Chemical Industry Pressure on Chromium Drinking Water Standard

[Update: 3/9/12 – Tom gets quote in Chemistry World coverage. end]

Today we do our first guest post, written by Tom McKee.  Tom is a retired DEP employee with many years experience in remediation of NJ’s chromium sites. Tom works with PEER on chromium and related issues.

By Tom McKee

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson - bows to industry pressure and reverses commitment to expedite update of chromium drinking water standard

On February 28, 2012 the USEPA quietly posted a notice deep in the bowels of its labyrinthine web site to disclose the fact that it is starting over on its Toxicology Review of Hexavalent Chromium in drinking water. The review originally was scheduled to be completed in 2011. (See this for EPA notice).

This Toxicology Review is the last step in a decade long process for adopting a drinking water standard for hexavalent chromium which is conducted by the USEPA’s program called the Intergrated Risk Information System (IRIS).

The USEPA is now scheduling another five years to complete the process.  (See this for EPA’s IRIS Tracking Report for chromium VI).

This delay is a huge victory for the American Chemistry Council (ACC) and other industry groups who spent millions on manufacturing doubt about the hexavalent chromium’s well documented toxicity.  They spent millions more lobbying to force the USEPA to use industry crafted data and the advice of industry paid scientist to delay the adoption of hexavalent chromium drinking water standard.

EPA initially attempted to resist industry pressure. In a letter dated April 7, 2011, Dr. Vincent Cogliano, Director of the USEPA’s IRIS program, responded to Ann M. Mason Senior Director of ACC :

I commend the American Chemistry Council for investing $4 million in targeted research on hexavalent chromium However, considering that new studies on hexavalent chromium are published virtually every month, there will always be ongoing research that could be accommodated through further delay. Without prejudging the outcome of mechanistic studies being written up for publication, it is entirely possible that granting your request could entail a delay of unknown duration with no public discussion or review of the strong new studies that are now available.

But it is now clear that the USPA has totally caved in to that pressure.

In EPA’s February 28, 2012 notice, the USEPA explains why the five year delay in adoption of the chromium drinking water standard is needed:

In September 2010, EPA released a draft IRIS assessment for hexavalent chromium, for the oral route of exposure only, for peer review and public comment. An independent expert peer review panel met in May 2011 to review the draft assessment. In their final report, the peer review panel urged EPA to consider the results of research that would soon be completed and peer-reviewed that could provide relevant scientific information that may inform the findings of the assessment. EPA takes seriously its commitment to independent expert peer review. Based on the advice of the peer review panel, EPA will review original primary research related to the health effects of hexavalent chromium that has been published since the release of the draft assessment for external peer review and will incorporate the findings as appropriate into its hexavalent chromium assessment.

In an October 3, 2011 letter to USEPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) alerted the USEPA that the so called “independent expert peer review panel” was actually stacked with industry paid consultants. The comments of the panel were biased and relied heavily on the “$4 million in targeted research” industry was undertaking but at that time had not even been published.

Both NRDC and PEER filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests to review the copies of the Conflict of Interest Questionnaire and Certification of Full Disclosure that all peer reviewers are required to file in order to be on a USEPA expert review panel.

Incredibly the USEPA denied the FOIA request and more incredibly has denied responsibility for enforcing its own conflict of interest standards and claims that it is totally in the hands of an outside contractor over which it has no control or right of review.

In an October 14, 2011 letter denying the FOIA request the USEPA explains how impotent they are in enforcing their own conflict of interest standards:

The FOIA decision stated that your request was denied because under the policies of the EPA IRIS Toxicological Review the requested information that was collected and held by EPA’s contractors is not to be disclosed except by request of a congressional committee, EPA’s Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Government Accountability Office, or as otherwise required by law. Therefore, EPA’s response to your FOIA request stated that EPA had no records in its possession to provide to you in response to your request.

PEER is currently lobbing US Senator Boxer asking that her congressional committee request the conflict of interest disclosures from the “independent expert peer review panel”.

Despite indisputable evidence of the toxicity and the widespread Cr6 contamination of the nation’s drinking water supply from hexavalent chromium the chemical industry has managed to derail efforts by the USEPA staff to adopt a drinking water standard for hexavalent chromium.

This delay has occurred despite EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s very public commitment to “address the immediate and long-term concerns over chromium-6, and … seek to ensure that our water is safe”.  (see this for Jackson’s Op-Ed commitment).