Mullin says Moorestown residents should do some research on the water they’re drinking.
A recent news article, “The E.P.A.’s Top 10 Toxic Threats,” (NYT 10/22) should be of interest to everyone in Moorestown. Number 10 is Trichloroethylene, (TCE) a contaminant listed in every Annual Water Quality Report for Moorestown since 2007.
In 2013, Lockheed Martin produced (by law) a “Fact Sheet,” saying it had been “actively removing TCE from shallow groundwater since 1995.” That remediation effort is a failure because the chemical is still in our drinking water. Last year, I asked David Sutton, Lockheed’s top environmental spokesperson, if the company had ever stopped using TCE in its operations. He declined to answer or return my calls.
Trichloroethylene is a chlorine-based chemical solvent used to de-grease circuit boards and metal parts. The E.P.A. says TCE is “associated with cancers of the liver, kidneys and blood. Animal studies suggest that it may also be a factor in birth defects, testicular cancer, leukemia, lymphomas and lung tumors.”
And yet, the E.P.A. has failed to regulate T.C.E. as a known carcinogen. One reason is that chemical industry lobbyists join the E.P.A. where they can influence, or even write, agency regulations.
Recently, Dr. Nancy Beck, a top executive with the American Chemical Council, (Dow, DuPont, Exxon-Mobil Chemical, Monsanto, etc.) was named Assistant Administrator of the E.P.A.’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention by President Trump.
If you live in Moorestown, and you want your family to have drinking water free of contaminants, do a little research and find a source to deliver spring water by the case, or in three, or five-gallon jugs. Don’t rely on the Federal E.P.A., the NJDEP, Lockheed-Martin, the town council or the township anager to do the job. You do it.
James V. Mullin
