Christie DEP Hands Drinking Water and Chemical Safeguards to DuPont

Dupont Official Put in Charge of Scientific Report on Risks of Unregulated Chemicals

DEP’s Science Advisory Board Report Recommended Dupont’s Method

DEP Clueless On Blatant Conflict of Interest and Scientific Bias

“Under this plan DuPont would be in charge of determining the public health impacts of its own chemicals polluting our waters …  We should all be embarrassed that this report is now what passes for environmental science in New Jersey.”

[Update: 6/27/14 – I don’t want to pick on Dupont – DEP welcomes undue corporate influence from other big boys and polluters too. Amazingly, the last slide of the SAB’s powerpoint presentation (see Appendix A) says this- not one public interest rep:

Added After SAB Meeting

• Chemistry Council of NJ
• NJ Business and Industry Assc.
• AWWA
• Environmental Authorities of NJ  – end update]

The Christie DEP’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) just quietly posted a Report on the DEP website on important public health and ecological issues regarding chemical safety, risks, and how best to regulate hundreds of currently unregulated toxic chemicals found in our drinking water, air, surface and groundwaters, soil, sediments, and fish and wildlife.

DEP Commissioner Martin directed the SAB to produce the Report.

Curiously, the final SAB Report formally was submitted to DEP Commissioner Martin almost two years ago, and just posted to the DEP website without explanation of the delay or a press release announcing the controversial recommendations of the Report.

Ever since the SAB members were appointed, we repeatedly have raised concerns regarding the membership of a Dupont corporate official, noting violations of basic scientific ethics related to conflict of interest and scientific bias.

It is mind boggling that DEP has now confirmed our fears and seems to be totally clueless about these issues – read the whole story from our friends at PEER:

Press Release 

For Immediate Release:  Thursday, June 26, 2014

Contact: Bill Wolfe (609) 397-4861; Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337 

New Jersey Hands Drinking Water Safeguards to DuPont

Corporate-Dominated Science Board Asks DuPont to Self-Assess Chemical Effects 

Trenton —Without public announcement, New Jersey has released a report urging that the assessment of emerging chemical contaminants in drinking water be handled by a system developed by the state’s largest chemical manufacturer.  This latest development caps a corporate campaign to kill a multi-year effort to address rising levels of unregulated chemicals in New Jersey drinking water supplies, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

The report is a product of the 16-member Science Advisory Board filled by Christie administration appointees to address the state’s entire portfolio of eco-science.  Despite its broad charge, the Board has produced only a few fragmentary work products.  This week the Board posted a report on “Contaminants of Emerging Concern” which was transmitted to the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) back on September 20, 2012.  The transmittal letter thanks a DuPont corporate executive serving on the Board for his “significant input.”  The skimpy seven-page report concludes –

“It is recommended that the hazard assessment be conducted using a platform called METIS (Metanomics Information System) developed by DuPont. METIS is a chemical informatics platform that provides a screening level view of potential environmental fate and effects, human health concerns, and societal perception concerns”

“Under this plan DuPont would be in charge of determining the public health impacts of its own chemicals polluting our waters,” stated New Jersey PEER Director Bill Wolfe, a former DEP analyst, noting that DuPont has already pressured  the state to water down its public health assessment of its Teflon-related compound known as PFOA.  “New Jersey now conducts its environmental science so that the fox not only guards the henhouse but also weighs the chickens and sizes the eggs.”

A decade ago, New Jersey was a national leader in identifying a growing number of new chemicals and compounds in drinking water supplies.  The DEP even developed a plan to filter many of these chemicals out of drinking water.  Meanwhile, its 30-year old Drinking Water Quality Institute was working to set new or tighter standards for a number of these emerging compounds of concern.

Under Governor Christie, however, all that prior work ground to a halt or went into reverse:

• His administration rejected a PEER rule-making petition to enact the state’s own plan to filter harmful chemicals out of drinking water;

• The Drinking Water Quality Institute was disrupted and did not meet for more than three years.  Its proposed chemical drinking water standards were all abandoned; and

• State environmental scientific work on virtually every topic has either been dismantled or channeled through this industry-dominated Science Advisory Board.

“New Jersey’s drinking water is steadily becoming more contaminated and the only solution being offered is ‘let’s go ask DuPont,’” added Wolfe, pointing out that the newly released 2012 report offers no solutions on what to do about the growing flow of unregulated pollutants once they are quantified.  “We should all be embarrassed that this report is now what passes for environmental science in New Jersey.”

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Read the curious “Chemicals of Emerging Concern” report

Contrast 2003 DEP findings on drinking water

Look at corporate takeover of Science Advisory Board

Visit sleepy Science Advisory Board webpage

View dismantlement of the Drinking Water Quality Institute

Revisit DuPont pressure to water down PFOA science

Examine Christie rejection of water filtration

See spread of unregulated contaminants in U.S. drinking water

New Jersey PEER is a state chapter of a national alliance of state and federal agency resource professionals working to ensure environmental ethics and government accountability