Keeping Your Lawn From Bugging You

  • There's a movement to stop using pesticides and sprays on your lawn. (Photo courtesy of Horia Varlan CC-BY)

A lot of us have a love-hate relationship with our lawns. We love them when they’re lush. We hate them when they’re full of dandelions and dead patches. It’s easy to have someone come out and spray pesticides to take care of weeds and bugs. But some people say it’s not necessary and could do more harm than good. Rebecca Williams reports:

Transcript

A lot of us have a love-hate relationship with our lawns. We love them when they’re lush. We hate them when they’re full of dandelions and
dead patches. It’s easy to have someone come out and spray pesticides to take care of weeds and bugs. But some people say it’s not necessary and could
do more harm than good. Rebecca Williams reports:

So, you might be using pesticides on your lawn right now. And of
course, the pesticide industry says that’s okay.

The industry says the chemicals are safe to use on the lawn if you use
them correctly.

Alan James is president of Responsible Industry for a Sound
Environment, or RISE. It’s a trade group for pesticide companies.

“If individuals or professional applicators read the labels and follow
labels, the likelihood of misuse of pesticides is virtually zero because the
labels provide all the information a consumer or professional needs to
apply products both efficiently and safely.”

But the problem is, not everybody reads the label.

Alan James says if you’re hiring someone to spray your lawn you should
make sure they’re certified and insured. You should also take your kids’
and pet’s toys off the lawn before they spray.

But a lot of people say there’s no point in using chemicals just to make
your lawn look good.

Jay Feldman is with the group Beyond Pesticides. He says of the 30
most common lawn pesticides, most of them are suspected by the
Environmental Protection Agency to cause cancer, birth defects or other health problems.

“There’s a range of adverse effects that are indicated as a part of the
pesticide registration program at EPA. EPA knows this information.
Why not remove pesticides from the equation, especially in light of the
fact that they’re not really necessary?”

There’s a movement to stop using pesticides in North America. Both
Ontario and Quebec have banned the sale and cosmetic use of
pesticides.

So if you’re not going to use pesticides, what do you do?

That’s a question Kevin Frank gets a lot. He’s an extension agent at
Michigan State University and an expert on lawns.

“I love to mow my lawn on the weekends because nobody can call me on
the phone or email me with questions.”

He’s been showing me green, healthy test plots of grass and some that
look sad and neglected. The scientists here have been working to find
ways to have good-looking lawns without a lot of chemicals.

Back in his office, Kevin Frank says he tells people they shouldn’t be
afraid to experiment.

“Do you have it in you to let it go for one season and see what happens?
And it could be ugly, so you’ve got to be prepared for that!”

He says a healthy, dense lawn is actually really good at fighting off
weeds and pests all on its own. So, how do you get a healthy, dense lawn
without a lot of chemicals? Frank says it might take a couple years to get
there. And it means going against conventional lawn advice.

“We’ve done a great deal of research here at Michigan State that runs
contrary to what I call ‘turf dogma’. You know: water deeply and
infrequently – and we’ve shown if you do it on a more frequent basis you
end up with a healthier plan overall.”

He recommends watering lightly – just 10 minutes – every day instead
of soaking the lawn once a week. Frank says it’s also good to fertilize
twice a year, use a mulch mower, and mow high instead of giving the
grass a buzz cut.

He says that could make your lawn so healthy, it might mean you won’t
need to spray or hire someone to spray your lawn.

He says the biggest adjustment in reducing pesticide use is managing
your expectations, and deciding how many weeds and bugs you can live
with.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Shops Happy With New Lead Rule

  • A lead detector finds over 5000 parts per million of lead in this toy. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

Kids consignment shops have been worried about a new law limiting lead and other chemicals in children’s products.
Julie Grant reports store owners are glad to finally have some answers from the federal government:

Transcript

Kids consignment shops have been worried about a new law limiting lead and other chemicals in children’s products.
Julie Grant reports store owners are glad to finally have some answers from the federal government:

Amanda Cingle in is manager at Once Upon a Child. It’s part of a franchise of 300 stores that sell used items for kids.

She says the owner was concerned the new law would mean they’d have to throw out their existing inventory – or spend many thousands of dollars having it all tested for chemicals.

But now the government’s Consumer Products Safety Commission says the law will only applies to new products, not those being re-sold.

“We’re so relieved. We don’t have to worry anymore. The owner’s worry was that she was going to have to close her doors and never reopen.”

Cingle says the store has an environmental mission – to reuse and recycle products – so she’s glad they don’t have to throw everything away.

But she’s also pleased that new products will be made with less harmful ingredients.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Hard Times and Heating Homes

  • 31% of low-income people said they kept their home so cold it felt unsafe. 20% said they had their electricity or gas shut off for some amount of time. (Photo by Gerald Downing, courtesy of FEMA)

Now that the price of oil has
dropped, the cost of heating your home
won’t be as high as experts were predicting
this summer. But millions of Americans
are still struggling to pay their heating
bills. Rebecca Williams reports in some
rare cases having your heat shut off can
mean being evicted from your home. And,
in the worst case, it can even mean losing
your children:

Transcript

Now that the price of oil has
dropped, the cost of heating your home
won’t be as high as experts were predicting
this summer. But millions of Americans
are still struggling to pay their heating
bills. Rebecca Williams reports in some
rare cases having your heat shut off can
mean being evicted from your home. And,
in the worst case, it can even mean losing
your children:

Demetria Salinas has three kids. Money is tight and she’s worried about
getting through the winter.

“I’m kinda nervous because I mean what if we don’t have enough to pay the
bills, then what do we do?”

She says she tries to save on heat by putting extra sweaters on her kids, and
turning the furnace off.

“Put the gas on for a little bit and turn it off, and when it gets a little bit
colder, put it back on. But it does definitely mean layering up, even in the
house.”

She says that’s hard on her kids.

Many parents are in these impossible situations. The National Energy
Assistance Director’s Association has found low-income people often have
to choose between paying their heating bills and feeding their kids.

31% said they kept their home so cold it felt unsafe. 20% of low income
people said they had their electricity or gas shut off for some amount of
time.

Phil Thompson works for Capital Area Community Services in Lansing,
Michigan. His agency helps people pay their bills and talks with utility
companies to buy people more time. He says usually utilities won’t shut
heat off in the coldest days of winter.

“Most utility companies are sympathetic to the situation of not having heat
in the wintertime. There’s always those horror stories of a senior or
handicapped individual who froze because their utility was turned off.
They’re going to do everything they can to keep that from happening.”

But Thompson says he sees a lot of people get their heat shut off in the
spring, and it can still get cold then.

Now, in some states, if the heat is shut off – even for just a little while – you
can be evicted.

“In some cases where there’s small children it’s very possible that Child
Protective Services would get involved and possibly remove the kids from
the household when there’s no utilities.”

That’s right – the state can take kids away if the utilities are shut off.

We talked with foster care workers in several states, and they all said that
this is rare. They said they do everything they can to keep families together,
and they can sometimes help pay heating bills. But they also said a home
with no heat is often a sign that something else is wrong.

Andrea Yocum is an investigator with Child Protective Services north of
Detroit.

“Typically there’s other reasons why they’re removed for example, if the
family’s just not willing to pay their bills because they’re using the money
for other things like drugs or alcohol.”

But Yocum says sometimes it’s just not the family’s fault.

“I have had families that were evicted as a result of their landlord not paying
their bills, and utilities turned off the same because the landlord’s not taking
care of what’s happening within the home.”

If families are evicted, it can be temporary, maybe just a couple days until
the heat’s back on. But for families living in poverty, having the heat turned
off again can happen as soon as the next bill is late.

There is some good news this year. There’s federal money that states use to
help people pay their heating bills. Because fuel prices were expected to go
up, Congress doubled that pot of money this year. Most states are reporting
they’re in a better position to help people now.

But winter is just beginning and they’re already getting a lot more people
asking for help with their heating bills than in the past.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Phthalates in Toyland

  • Toy makers use phthalates to make hard plastic pliable (Source: Toniht at Wikimedia Commons)

By early next year, a new law
should make plastic toys less toxic.
But consumer advocates say the Bush
administration is bending the new law
to suit the toy industry over children’s
safety. Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

By early next year, a new law
should make plastic toys less toxic.
But consumer advocates say the Bush
administration is bending the new law
to suit the toy industry over children’s
safety. Julie Grant reports:

Chemicals known as phthalates are used to make rubber
duckies, teethers, and lots of plastic toys softer and more
bendable.

But they can also cause genital deformities, lower sperm
counts, and early puberty.

Liz Hitchcock is with the US Public Interest Research Group,
which cheered when Congress banned many phthalates in
toys. The law goes into effect in Februrary.

But now Hitchcock says the government’s Consumer
Products Safety Commission is telling toy makers they can
continue to sell toys with phthalates – as long as they don’t
manufacture any more after the law takes effect.

“What they’re saying is that if an industry or a store has
existing inventory of these toxic toys as of February 10, they
can keep selling until they exhaust their supply.”

Congress has scheduled a hearing this week to clarify the
law.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Toxic Toys Still on Shelves

  • A lead detector finds over 5000 parts per million of lead in this toy. (Photo by Lisa Ann Pinkerton)

Millions of toys were recalled
last year because of lead contamination.
There were about half as many recalls this
year, but lead in toys is still a problem.
Rebecca Williams reports there’s a new law
that will limit the amount of lead in any
toy or children’s product, but it won’t go
into effect until after the holidays:

Transcript

Millions of toys were recalled
last year because of lead contamination.
There were about half as many recalls this
year, but lead in toys is still a problem.
Rebecca Williams reports there’s a new law
that will limit the amount of lead in any
toy or children’s product, but it won’t go
into effect until after the holidays:

There is already a federal limit on how much lead can be in the paint on
kids’ toys. But lead can also be in places you might not expect – like plastic
parts of toys.

The new law puts a limit on lead in any part of a toy. But the new law won’t
take effect until February 10th. So that means toys that you can buy now
can legally have very high levels of lead embedded in them.

Mike Shriberg is with the Ecology Center. It’s an environmental group
that’s been testing toys for lead.

(beep)

He has an analyzer that tells you what elements are in a toy – in this case, a
plastic building block.

“So when I look at the results here, this orange block has over 3,000 parts
per million of lead. Now remember this will be illegal to be on the shelves
in February. It’s legal now because the lead’s not in the paint, it’s embedded
in the plastic.”

Babies and little kids’ brains and bodies are still developing. Since they tend
to put toys in their mouths, they’re really vulnerable to damage from lead.

“There is no safe level of lead in blood. Pediatricians have said a little bit of
lead causes a little bit of brain damage and a lot of lead causes a lot of brain
damage. We think toys shouldn’t be involved in causing any amount of
brain damage.”

Mike Shriberg says there is no way to know just by looking which toys have
lead and which ones don’t. But he says children’s jewelry is by far the
worst. They found it’s five times more likely to have lead than other toys.
He says simpler toys, such as unpainted wooden toys, tend to be safer.

“Just to be clear there is no surefire rule.”

Shriberg’s group has tested 1,500 toys this year and has put the results up on
their website: healthy-toys dot org.

The group found about one in every five toys still has lead.

Mattel and Hasbro say they’re carefully testing their toys this year. And
retailers such as Toys R Us and Wal-Mart are also testing toys.

The National Retail Federation did not return calls for comment.

The National Association of Manufacturers did not want to comment for this
story. But in a recent Wall Street Journal article – a spokesperson for the
trade group said billions of dollars in inventory could be lost when the new
lead law goes into effect.

Three billion toys are sold in the US each year. So who’s going to make
sure all those toys comply with the new law? A small government agency.

Julie Vallese is with the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

“CPSC always has investigators in the field looking for products in violation
of safety standards. Now it is a big market and we do have limited
resources. But we have a systematic way of going about looking for
violations and we will be doing that come February 10th.”

Last year, the New York Times reported that just one man, named Bob, was
responsible for testing toys for safety.

Agency officials say that’s not true – they say many people test toys. We
asked how many. We asked repeatedly. We wanted to know the exact
number of people who test toys for lead. But they refused to tell us.

Congress has promised more money for more toy testers. But that has not
happened yet.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says besides – industry has the
biggest responsibility here.

The agency says when the new toy law goes into effect in February, it’ll be
up to the manufacturers, the retailers and the importers to make sure the toys
they’re selling are not in violation of the new lead law.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Childhood Obesity Antidote: A Walk to School

  • In a suburban area of Chicago, kids protested to make the area safer for walking to school (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Kids in big cities often live
close to school, so you’d think walking
to school would be an easy solution to
cutting childhood obesity. But some
parents worry about traffic, abduction,
or gangs so much, they stuff their kids
in the car instead. Shawn Allee met some
groups who want parents to overcome that
fear and let kids burn more calories:

Transcript

Kids in big cities often live
close to school, so you’d think walking
to school would be an easy solution to
cutting childhood obesity. But some
parents worry about traffic, abduction,
or gangs so much, they stuff their kids
in the car instead. Shawn Allee met some
groups who want parents to overcome that
fear and let kids burn more calories:

“I’m going to walk you through what Safe Routes To School is and we’ll talk about
how it works in a place like Chicago.”

This is Melody Geraci.

She’s with the Active Transportation Alliance, a Chicago group that promotes walking and
biking.

For Geraci, there’s plain-jane walking to school where you toss your kid a lunch bucket and
wave goodbye – and there’s organized walking.

In some parts of Chicago and other big cities – parents don’t trust the plain-jane kind.

“When we ask parents, why does your child not walk or bike to school, a lot of
parents will say ‘distance’ – it’s too far. That’s not the case in Chicago. Most kids
live close enough to their neighborhood school to get there by foot, right? But then
they say traffic. People are driving crazy. The streets are hard to cross, not enough
crossing guards, all that stuff.”

Geraci says organized school walking is a remedy: put kids together, and put adults in the
mix.

“There’s this phenomenon called safety in numbers. So if you have fifteen people at
an intersection at a light, they’re much easier to see than just one person trying to
navigate it all by themselves and nobody’s seen what happened.”

Geraci says this safety in numbers idea goes a long way in fighting traffic problems.

It can also work on fear over gangs or abduction.

“When fewer people are outside, walking places, biking places, just being out in
their environment, what happens? Things happen. Crime. There are fewer people
watching.”

Geraci’s message resonates with Carmen Scott-Boria.

Scott-Boria recommends walking to school as a solution to childhood obesity.

But she hesitated at first, because of her experience as a kid.

“The same time that I walked to school, that was also a prime gang-recruiting time
after school, so I definitely was intrigued by the gangs and got involved with gangs
because I walked to school.”

Scott-Boria says she’s not trying to scare parents – she just wants them to know what
they’re up against – and how organized they need to be.

To get an idea of what organized school walking can look like, I head to one of Chicago’s
elementary schools.

Victoria Arredondo and Remedios Salinas are near the school’s back entrance.

They run a walking school bus.

Every day, Arredondo and Salinas walk kids on a fixed route between school and home.

It’s like a bus, with no wheels – and no air pollution.

Arredondo says she gets plenty out of it.

“When I’m walking, I feel famous. People greet me, the neighbors, the businesses,
because they see us with the children and they greet us.”

Arredondo appreciates the recognition – because, every once in a while, it’s clear how
important her volunteer work is.

“We have a problem with gangs. A young lady got caught in the crossfire last year.
Since then the violence has settled down. It’s sad because after the loss, people want
to help.”

Her partner Salinas says that doesn’t last long.

“Sometimes people sign up but they don’t continue after a month, they stop doing
it.”

Salinas and Arredondo say their walking school bus makes everyone feel safer and fewer
cars clog up the street near school.

That translates into cleaner air and more exercise for kids.

That’s a community asset they’re glad to protect – they wish more parents would get on
board.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

THERE’S iPODS IN THEM APPLE TREES!

  • If you find a wooden apple like this one in a Vermont orchard, you can turn it in for a free iPod (Photo courtesy of the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing)

Fall is in full swing, and in the
northern states, what better way to appreciate
the time of year than to go apple picking?
It’s the fall thing to do, right? Well, not
for everyone. Lulu Miller reports:

Transcript

Fall is in full swing, and in the
northern states, what better way to appreciate
the time of year than to go apple picking?
It’s the fall thing to do, right? Well, not
for everyone. Lulu Miller reports:

“Ooh that’s perfect! Perfect fall day. Little Chill in the air.”

That’s orchard owner Nick Cowles and we’re here with him at his orchard.

“Beautiful apple!”

Shelburne Orchards. Near Burlington Vermont.

“Looks out over Lake Champlain.”

And to hear him to tell it, an afternoon spent apple picking is pretty much as
good as it gets.

“Yeah. There’s something about gathering food with your family that’s primal
almost. I see people show up in their cars. The dad, the face is a little pinched. He
had to get the kids in the car. They didn’t really wanna come. His whole life is
stress. And then by the time, the difference in the face when he’s leavin’, it’s just
a whole different face.”

Everyone’s dream weekend, right?

Well. Not exactly. There is one group of people who just aren’t all that thrilled
about fall leaves and apple picking.

“Well yeah. The demographics of Vermont are a little scary right now. We have
the least number of folks in there 20s in the country.”

That’s Bruce Hyde, Commissioner of Tourism for the state of Vermont. He says
the 20-somethings are missing.

“I can understand after going to one of the great colleges we have in a rural state,
that a lot of folks wanna go and experience the big cities and sow their oats.”

And so, as the guy in charge of tourism, Bruce has a mission.

“We’re really trying to attract more young people to the state of Vermont.”

And here’s what he’s up against.

Lulu Miller: “Just wondering if you guys have any plans to go apple picking this
season?”

Student: “Not really. I’m not really into apples.”

Miller: “No?”

Student: “My age? It’s kind of about the debauchery. Sleeping in on Saturdays.
Not going apple picking with the folks. You know?”

I’m talking to college students in a park near New York University.

Student: “It’s not something that I would hear my friends being like, ‘can’t hang
out on Saturday! Going apple picking!’ I just can’t imagine that coming out of
their mouths.”

So what’s a commissioner of tourism to do?

“We were trying to figure out, what’s a way to get more young people into the
orchards? So we came up with an idea. A cute little idea.”

If apples just weren’t enticing enough to lure people to Vermont, Comissioner
Hyde thought, maybe there’s something else they’d prefer to find in the trees.
Like…

“An iPod!”

That’s right in the apple trees of Vermont.

“Macintosh. Courtlans. Red delicious.”

You can find iPods.

“Nano’s. A couple of touch’s. And the just the classic iPod.”

Now they’re not actually dangling from the trees.

“What we did is we made up wooden apples. They have the state seal on them.”

And if you find that, you can turn it and get an ipod.

“Yeah. And it really has brought a lot of people into the orchards. We haven’t
done any kinda survey. But the response I’ve heard from orchards is they’ve
never seen so few apples left on the trees.”

Orchard owner Nick Cowles agrees.

“Lotta people know about it, have heard about it. ‘Come on mom, lets go look
for the iPod!’ It’s a great program. It does what it set out to do. It really helps the
orchards. They’ve been very smart to do this.”

So what do the college students think?

Student: (laughs) “They’res gonna be iPods with apples!? No way!”

Miller: “Would that make you go? Would it up the ante at all?”

Student: “It absolutely does. I would definitely go apple picking if there was a
chance I could stumble across an iPod.”

But not all of them feel that way, in fact many of them pointed out that luring
people with iPods sounds so wrong. Kinda grinds against the notion of getting
people out into nature.

“Does that feel wrong? No.”

Orchard owner Nick Cowles.

“In my estimation, anything that brings families together, outside, doing
something like that – it doesn’t get any better than that. They’re out in the
orchard, runnin’ around, picking apples – that’s healthy. They’re doin’ it as a
family.”

(boys laughing. “Hey find me an apple!”

Apples. iPods. Whatever it takes.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lulu Miller.

(sound of biting an apple)

Related Links

Little Relief for Asthmatics

  • This commonly-prescribed albuterol asthma inhaler will soon be a relic of America's medical past. The federal government fears the device's chlorofluorocarbon-based (CFC) propellent harms the ozone layer. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

We usually expect environmental
regulations to make us healthier in the
long run. Well, there’s one coming down
that some people aren’t so sure about.
Reporter Shawn Allee says it has to do
with propellants in asthma medicine:

Transcript

We usually expect environmental
regulations to make us healthier in the
long run. Well, there’s one coming down
that some people aren’t so sure about.
Reporter Shawn Allee says it has to do
with propellants in asthma medicine:

Maureen Damitz struggles with asthma.

She’s got it and two of her kids do, too.

But fighting it is also a career.

Damitz is with the Respiratory Health Association of Metropolitan Chicago – it’s the
nerve center for asthma issues in her area.

She says recently, pharmacies have been running out of a familiar asthma inhaler.

“Our phones started ringing off the walls months ago. All of a sudden patients
started getting these new inhalers, and no one was prepared for that.”

The old-standby has been the albuterol inhaler – it’s for quick relief.

Damitz says there is a cheap generic, but it’s got a propellant with Chloro-fluoro-carbons
or CFCs.

And, the government’s banning CFC albuterol inhalers.

Damitz says some patients will miss them.

“When you’re spraying it, it comes out with quite a blast.”

(puff, puff)

“People mistake that as, ‘it forces it into my lungs’; it doesn’t, it’s just the type of
propellant.”

Three new inhalers have the same medicine but a different propellant, known as HFA.

“The new HFA comes out much softer and its warmer when it comes out. They
mistake that as, ‘Oh, my medication doesn’t work.’”

Damitz says studies show the new inhalers work just as well or better than old ones, but
some patients report just the opposite.

Regardless, no one will have a choice soon. By January, no pharmacy can sell albuterol
inhalers with CFC propellents.

Why?

“Originally it arose from the concern that CFC’s were damaging the atmosphere.”

Dr. Nicholas Gross is an asthma specialist.

He says CFCs used to be in many things – refrigerators, air conditioners, and asthma
inhalers.

But CFCs deplete the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere. That lets more solar radiation
through and causes skin cancer.

The government banned CFCs in most products.

But drug companies got exemptions and were slow to develop alternative propellants.

In 2005, the government asked a medical panel to speed things up.

“They were concerned nothing much was changing. It looked like companies were
going to keep claiming exemptions indefinitely, so they asked what we would
recommend they should do about that.”

Gross and other panelists found three competing albuterol inhalers with new propellents.

So, they recommended a ban start next year. Now, Dr. Gross regrets that ban.

“One thing I don’t think anybody paid enough attention to was the fact that it was
going to be much more expensive in the HFA version than the CFC version.”

CFC-based albuterol inhalers cost about thirteen bucks a pop.

New HFA ones cost three times that.

There won’t be a generic inhaler with the new propellant until 2010.

Dr. Gross worries some patients will go without.

“I think it’s very difficult for the FDA to turn around and rescind itself. It means
somebody made a mistake and in government that’s not something you’re allowed
to admit.”

But, the FDA is sticking with the ban.

One asthma expert is more at ease with the transition.

He’s Paul Greenberger – head of the Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

He says if patients puff through new, expensive albuterol inhalers quickly – there might
be something wrong with how they’re using them.

“We don’t want people using them everyday if they can help it. We have to take a
look at their overall asthma control – do they need better therapy, frankly than
these albuterol inhalers?”

Of course, that might mean a doctor’s visit and new meds.

Dr. Greenberger says all of this is expensive, but he still supports a ban on CFC albuterol
inhalers.

He says if patients get treatment that’s also better for the atmosphere, well, that’s
priceless.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Perchlorate, Pregnancy, and Politics

  • Perchlorate is a chemical in rocket fuel that has been found in some drinking water supplies. It’s been linked to thyroid problems in pregnant women and babies. (Photo courtesy of the CDC)

Critics of the Environmental Protection
Agency say the agency is putting pregnant women
and children at risk. Rebecca Williams reports
the controversy centers on a chemical that’s found
in some drinking water supplies:

Transcript

Critics of the Environmental Protection
Agency say the agency is putting pregnant women
and children at risk. Rebecca Williams reports
the controversy centers on a chemical that’s found
in some drinking water supplies:

Perchlorate is a chemical in rocket fuel. It’s been linked to thyroid problems in
pregnant women and babies. It’s been found in milk, and lettuce and water
supplies from coast to coast.

But the Environmental Protection Agency has not set a safety standard for the
chemical in drinking water. Recently, a draft document obtained by the press
stated that EPA does not intend to set that standard.

The Washington Post reported that White House officials edited the EPA
document. And took out references to some studies that linked perchlorate to
thyroid problems.

Senator Barbara Boxer is a Democrat from California. She says she’s troubled
by this news.

“To me it’s just an immoral decision that EPA has made not to set forth a
standard for perchlorate. Perchlorate interferes with production of hormones
that are needed for development of the brain and the nervous system. This is
really a dangerous, dangerous chemical.”

Boxer endorsed a bill that would force EPA to set a standard.

The EPA says, ‘whoa, hang on a minute, this is just a draft.’

In a statement sent to The Environment Report, EPA assistant administrator
Benjamin Grumbles says quote.

“We know perchlorate in drinking water presents some degree of risk and
we’re committed to working with states and scientists to ensure public health is
protected.”

Grumbles says the agency will release its draft decision soon. That version will
be open to public comment.

But some critics say politics is shaping this entire decision.

Perchlorate has been used for decades by the defense industry. The chemical’s
used for making and firing rockets and missiles.

John Stephenson is with the Government Accountability Office. It’s the federal
agency that acts as a watchdog.

“Setting a standard is important because, in the Department of Defense’s case,
they don’t clean up anything for which there is no standard.”

Stephenson says his watchdog agency is bothered by some recent changes at
the EPA. This spring, the EPA changed its chemical review process. It’s used
to decide how dangerous a given chemical might be.

Stephenson says now, the Department of Defense and the White House can
keep their comments private.

“And EPA can receive comments behind closed doors in what amounts to a
black box. So let’s say the Department of Defense offers up some new
research on perchlorate that they think is compelling reason why the standards
should be set or shouldn’t be set at a certain level but nobody else in the
scientific community can see what this is until the end of the process.”

Stephenson says he’s lost confidence in the EPA to change this.

The GAO is urging Congress to step in and bring more light to the process
that’s supposed to keep the public safe.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Study: Pregnancy and Peanut Butter

  • A study found that moms who ate peanut butter or nuts every day increased the risk of asthma in their kids by 50% (Photo courtesy of the EPA)

A new study finds pregnant moms
who eat peanut butter every day might be
affecting their babies’ health. Rebecca
Williams has more:

Transcript

A new study finds pregnant moms
who eat peanut butter every day might be
affecting their babies’ health. Rebecca
Williams has more:

The Dutch government has been following a few thousand kids and their moms
for 8 years. They wanted to see if there was a link between the moms’ diets
and whether the kids would develop asthma.

It turns out that moms who ate peanut butter or nuts every day increased the
risk of asthma in their kids by 50%.

Dr. John Heffner is a former president of the American Thoracic Society. He
says these results are interesting – but that doesn’t mean there’s a definite link
between eating nuts and asthma.

“I think that this is a piece of information that confirms a well balanced diet of
mothers is the most important thing to do. But it doesn’t suggest that mothers
oughta take nuts out of their diet if they’re ingesting nuts now.”

Dr. Heffner says there are a lot of factors that could lead to asthma. He says
this needs more study, but in the meantime, pregnant moms should stick to
their doctor’s advice.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links