Fears grow over toxic ROCKET FUEL chemical lurking in America’s drinking water: Expert sounds alarm over exactly who is at risk… and terrifying potential side effects

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is using data that is more than two decades old to develop the first nationwide drinking water standard for a toxic chemical that has been linked to lower IQ in children. 

Perchlorate, used in rocket fuel, missiles, fireworks and military flares, can seep into groundwater that supplies public drinking water systems. Because it is colorless, odorless and tasteless, it cannot be detected without laboratory testing.

A Daily Mail analysis of the EPA’s only nationwide survey of perchlorate, conducted between 2001 and 2005, found the chemical in 126 public water systems across 26 states. 

Another nationwide occurrence survey was never conducted, and, because the aging survey does not reflect current contamination levels, it offers a murky picture of where perchlorate could still be detected and pose a risk today.

But the EPA is using that survey data – together with compliance monitoring data from California, collected in 2007, and Massachusetts, collected in 2023 – to determine how many water systems nationally could potentially exceed its court-ordered proposed drinking water limit for the chemical. 

The agency must finalize the rule by the May 21, 2027 deadline.

The agency told the Daily Mail that the combined datasets are the ‘best available representative data’ for determining how frequently perchlorate occurs in public water systems and at what levels. 

The EPA has repeatedly changed its position on perchlorate without ever putting a national drinking-water limit into effect.

The agency opposed nationwide regulation under President George W Bush in 2008, arguing that perchlorate was not found at concerning levels often enough to justify a federal limit. 

It reversed course under President Barack Obama in 2011 and concluded that a national standard was necessary under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The law required the agency to propose a regulation within two years, but it missed that deadline and was sued by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) in 2016 to force action.

In 2019, the EPA concluded that perchlorate can impair fetal brain development by disrupting thyroid hormone production, and identified reduced IQ in children following prenatal exposure as the most sensitive health effect when evaluating whether the chemical should be regulated in drinking water. 

The agency’s assessment relied in part on a human study that found women with the highest perchlorate levels during early pregnancy were more than three times as likely to have children whose IQ ranked in the lowest ten percent at age three. 

The same month, the EPA proposed a limit before reversing once more in 2020, citing updated scientific analyses, state regulations and cleanup efforts and concluding that perchlorate did not occur frequently enough, or at high enough concentrations, to justify a nationwide standard.

The Biden administration reviewed that reversal in 2022 and upheld its scientific basis. The EPA’s position today remains the same, despite a federal appeals court ruling in 2023 that the agency must propose regulations for the chemical, arguing that it is a public health threat.

‘Members of the public deserve to know whether there’s rocket fuel in their tap water,’ said NRDC senior attorney Sarah Fort, per the Associated Press. ‘We’re pleased to see that, however reluctantly, EPA is moving one step closer to providing the public with that information.’

Perchlorate has long been associated with military bases, aerospace facilities and weapons manufacturing plants, where decades of production and testing have allowed perchlorate to seep into soil and groundwater. 

Unlike many contaminants, perchlorate dissolves easily in water and can travel significant distances underground before reaching municipal wells that supply homes and businesses.

Once consumed, perchlorate interferes with the thyroid’s ability to absorb iodine, an essential nutrient needed to produce hormones that regulate metabolism, growth and brain development. 

‘The thyroid, especially early on, is just very important for neurodevelopment,’ Shan Yin, a toxicologist with the American College of Medical Toxicologists, told the Daily Mail.

‘The really at-risk group would be pregnant women and very, very young babies.’

The EPA said in its 2019 assessment that developing fetuses are especially vulnerable because they rely on their mother’s thyroid hormones during early pregnancy, when the brain and nervous system are rapidly forming. 

Yin said pregnant women may be more susceptible because they have greater metabolic demands while supporting a developing fetus.

‘If you add on this extra kind of insult… these smaller effects to a fetus might then be a concern,’ he added. ‘The fetus [is] that stage where their brain is undergoing a lot of development.’

Perchlorate has also been detected in irrigation water, fertilizer and food. 

Recent research suggests food has become the largest source of perchlorate exposure for most Americans, although drinking water remains one of the few exposure pathways that can be regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

Perchlorate is detectable in nearly all produce, dairy products and packaged foods, accounting for an estimated 80 percent of Americans’ exposure.

The EPA’s 2001–2005 survey painted a striking picture of where perchlorate was being detected nationwide, with California recording the highest number of affected public water systems at 50.

New York followed with ten systems, Arizona had nine and Oklahoma six, while Florida, New Jersey and Ohio each had five. 

Some systems recorded striking concentrations. Sebring, Florida, reached 70 parts per billion (ppb), followed by Redlands, California, at 67 ppb. Other notable detections included Oconee County, Georgia, at 38 ppb, Meadville, Pennsylvania, at 32.7 ppb, and systems in Ohio, Texas and Oklahoma at 30 ppb or higher.

Those figures reflect the EPA’s nationwide survey conducted more than two decades ago and do not necessarily represent current contamination levels. 

Because the EPA never repeated that nationwide monitoring, it is impossible to produce an equivalent national picture showing how levels have changed. Some affected wells may since have been treated, closed or removed from service. 

California and Massachusetts have since adopted enforceable statewide drinking water standards for perchlorate of 6 ppb and 2 ppb, respectively, and continue monitoring public water systems.

At least ten other states, including Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Texas and Vermont, have adopted their own health advisories, groundwater standards or screening levels in the absence of a federal rule. Those thresholds vary widely, reflecting different approaches to assessing the chemical’s health risks.

Now, the EPA is considering enforceable limits of 20 ppb, 40 ppb or 80 ppb, according to its proposal – concentrations much higher than limits in states such as California and Massachusetts.

However, agency officials are adamant that perchlorate contamination is not a widespread issue, saying in January that they ‘anticipate that fewer than one‑tenth of one percent of regulated water systems are likely to find perchlorate above the proposed limits.’ 

‘Due to infrequent perchlorate occurrence at levels of health concern, the vast majority of the approximately 66,000 water systems that would be subject to the rule will incur substantial administrative and monitoring costs with limited or no corresponding public health benefit as a whole,’ the EPA argued in its proposal.

If adopted, utilities exceeding the limit could be required to install treatment systems, remove contaminated wells from service or secure alternative water supplies.