DoD has no clue how many people it’s exposed to toxic chemicals
By Meghann Myers
Dec 9, 02:24 PM
Defense Department officials have said in the past that it may take decades to clean up all of the contaminated groundwater surrounding hundreds of military installations known to have used firefighting foam comprised of toxic chemicals. Another issue will be determining what “cleaned up” means.
The Environmental Protection Agency sets the policy and standards that DoD and the military services have used to evaluate the safety of their drinking water, but according to the EPA’s inspector general, the agency is sorely lacking in its ability not only to identify toxic chemicals, but to evaluate their danger. That makes it difficult to determine what’s a safe limit, in compliance with the Toxic Substances Control Act, which requires studies on a host of chemicals.
“The EPA [inspector general’s office] found that the EPA did not have the internal capacity to conduct even the first set of 10 TSCA risk evaluations in a timely manner,” Sean O’Donnell, who is also DoD’s acting IG, told a Senate panel on Thursday. “Despite the reassignment of up to 19 full-time equivalents to help with those 10 evaluations, the EPA still failed to meet the deadline.”
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2021/12/09/dod-has-no-clue-how-many-people-its-exposed-to-toxic-chemicals/
