Chromium hex

==

see brockovich

=<a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/501147/retrobituaries-karen-wetterhahn-chemist-whose-poisoning-death-changed-safety">http://mentalfloss.com/article/501147/retrobituaries-karen-wetterhahn-chemist-whose-poisoning-death-changed-safety</a>
OSHA chromium218 m US<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/erin-brockovich-chemical-drinking-water-2010490185.html">http://www.ecowatch.com/erin-brockovich-chemical-drinking-water-2010490185.html</a>==

see  McCrory Gov
http://wfae.org/post/ncs-state-epidemiologist-resigns-citing-misleading-info-mccrory-administration<div class="gwt-HTML" aria-hidden="false" style=" font-size: small; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">

You normally don’t hear much about North Carolina’s state epidemiologist.

But it’s not every day that a scientist sends out a <a href="https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3010359/DaviesResignationPDF10Aug2016.pdf" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">scathing letter of resignation</a>.

That’s just what Dr. Megan Davies did late Tuesday night, citing what she sees as McCory administration officials misleading the public about whether or not well water near unlined coal ash ponds is safe to drink.

Dr. Megan Davies had served as North Carolina’s top epidemiologist for the past seven years, staying out of the spotlight.

Then Tuesday, two top McCrory administration officials<a href="http://deq.nc.gov/press-release/despite-mischaracterizations-north-carolina-protecting-drinking-water" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none; box-sizing: border-box; line-height: inherit; background-image: initial; background-attachment: initial; background-size: initial; background-origin: initial; background-clip: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial;">published an editorial</a> attacking the credibility of state toxicologist Dr. Ken Rudo – and his claims that politics, not science was behind the reversal of a state do-not-drink order for well water near unlined coal ash ponds.

The editorial portrayed Rudo as a rogue scientist with questionable findings.

Davies told WUNC that just isn’t the case.

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"What outraged me in that editorial is that two people working in government who I have interacted with extensively, and I know that they know the process we went through, those two people sent out a document that conveyed that a lone scientist was behaving independently on his own whim when people’s health and lives were affected by those recommendations."

Her resignation letter was much more biting. “Upon reading the open editorial yesterday evening, I can only conclude that the Department’s leadership is fully aware that this document misinforms the public.” Adding, “I cannot work for a department and an administration that deliberately misleads the public.”

Rudo’s claims were made in a sworn deposition, one Duke Energy has tried to keep sealed. He also stated Governor McCrory was directly involved in the reversal of the do-not-drink order, taking part in the meeting over the phone. In return, the McCrory administration has been more than open in its criticism of Rudo.

Here’s McCrory’s Chief of Staff, Thomas Stith, in a surprise late night press conference earlier this month.

"We’re not going to stand by idly while individuals makes false statements and lies under oath."

Now it’s relatively easy to attack the views of a single scientist. But adding Dr. Davies resignation to the mix makes it much more difficult for the McCrory administration, especially given her reputation among the top epidemiologists in other states.

"She has an outstanding reputation among her colleagues," says Dr. Jeffery Engel, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. He also has served as North Carolina’s top epidemiologist. In fact, he's the one who hired Dr. Davies.

The original do-not-drink order was issued because of elevated levels of hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen. It’s a compound that can occur naturally – but is most commonly created by human activity. It is known to be present in coal ash.

"You can't go out in the population and say X number of people have developed cancer because they were ingesting well water with those chemicals in it."But while hexavalent chromium is known to cause cancer, what level of exposure is safe is still in question says Engel.

Because the link can be hard to establish. Unlike, say, a salmonella outbreak which could easily be traced back to a restaurant.

Still North Carolina scientists – including Dr. Davies, Dr. Rudo and others studied hexavalent chromium exposure and set a state limit. That was the basis of the original do-not-drink order. Dr. Engel say’s that’s normally enough for a state’s health department. They trust their staff.

In her resignation letter Dr. Davies says this was not the case. And the level of hexavalent chromium in the effected wells is still the same says Catawba Riverkeeper Sam Perkins.

"The data has very clearly shown wells near unlined coal ash ponds had orders of magnitude of more hexavalent chromium than what is calculated to be safe under North Carolina law and what is typically seen in municipal treated drinking water utilities."

But the standard of exposure deemed safe by the state has changed. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has chosen to ignore the state’s own standard and go with a much older and more generous standard established by the federal government.

Speaking Thursday afternoon, Governor Pat McCrory defended the move by saying it’s just a disagreement among scientists. This was recorded by WRAL.

"We’re providing all the information necessary to ensure that we have safe drinking water. And the public knows exactly what the value of that drinking water is, especially as it relates to the federal standard which President Obama supports and his administration supports," McCrory said.

It was an odd moment where Governor McCory decided it was best to agree with President Obama.

For some, this is just a he-said-she-said story, with both sides accusing the other of twisting science and lying to the public.

But for Amy Brown, it’s about much more.

"I live next to Duke Energy’s Allen steam station right here in Belmont, North Carolina."

She, her husband, and her two young sons live less than 1,000 feet from an unlined Duke Energy coal ash pond. They rely on a well for their water. At least they did until a little over a year ago – when they, their neighbors and hundreds of others in similar situations around the state received a letter from state officials saying the water in their wells was contaminated and was unsafe to drink. Since that time the Browns have been living one bottle of water at a time.

"As for cooking, every single meal is prepared with a bottle of water. When you brush your teeth you use bottled water," Brown explained.

That water is paid for by Duke. Delivered every two weeks. Despite the fact the company and now the state say the well water is perfectly safe. Duke is just a good neighbor a spokeswoman told WFAE.

But that bottled water only goes so far says Brown.

"My four year old son does not know what its like to enjoy a long playful bubble bath. How sad is that?"

Bottled water, contaminated taps, distrust of state government, for Amy Brown there’s a simple comparison.

"We are a Flint, North Carolina. I know there are differences there and I don’t take away from Flint in any way, shape or form, but we do have things that are similar. And the corruption is one of them."

Riverkeeper Sam Perkins takes that comparison a step further.

"Imagine if in Flint, Michigan, we were also hearing that in the process of finding high levels of lead, the process was not just to ignore the problem but to try to find the highest, oldest, lead standard possible and cite that for a reason the water was safe."

That’s just what Sam Perkins believes North Carolina officials did.

WFAE Reporters Lisa Worf and Michael Tomsic contributed to this report.

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<div class="field-item" itemprop="dateline" style=" box-sizing: border-box;">RALEIGH</div>

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<div class="field-item" style=" box-sizing: border-box;">Tuesday, August 9, 2016</div>

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After news reports and editorials inaccurately and unfairly characterized the state’s efforts to protect drinking water, the North Carolina departments of Health and Human Services and Environmental Quality release the following open editorial:

Recent media stories and editorials have given support to the questionable and inconsistent scientific conclusions reached by toxicologist Ken Rudo and have created unnecessary fear and confusion among North Carolinians who are concerned about the safety of their drinking water. Scientists do and should continuously question the status quo, and disagreement among them is to be expected. But both media and scientists should also be expected to recognize facts.

At issue is how much Chromium 6 and Vanadium, both naturally occurring compounds that can also be found in coal ash, is considered safe in drinking water. Rudo doesn’t just disagree with other scientists on this subject – he has even contradicted himself. The federal safe drinking water standard for Chromium is 100 parts per billion and, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, “assumes that a measurement of total chromium is 100 percent Chromium 6”. Rudo himself recognized this fact in November 2014 when he advised well owners near coal ash ponds that their water was safe to drink because “your well water meets federal drinking water standards”.

Just a few months later, Rudo reversed course and advised the same well owners not to drink their water. Rather than relying on the federal standard he said was safe just months before, he used his own threshold, which was 1,400 times lower than the federal standard.

We realize that this is a dynamic science and there are differing viewpoints. For example, the original recommended level in well owners’ letters for Vanadium was set 33 times lower than what’s found in daily multivitamins. For hexavalent chromium, Rudo’s analysis is out of step with the federal government and 49 other states. If one followed the threshold he proposes, every state would have to issue “do not drink” orders to hundreds of millions of people. Many cities and states recognize that Chromium 6 represents some risk at levels below the federal drinking water standard, but none issue “do not drink” orders under those circumstances.

Despite these inconsistencies, the disagreement among staff at the state environmental and health and human services departments was about how best to advise North Carolinians about the safety of their drinking water. Staff at the state environmental department found untenable that he limited his threshold to only those well owners near the coal ash ponds. He refused to apply the same recommendation to the other 900,000 North Carolina wells or the millions of people who consume well water that may measure above his threshold.

When pressed during a deposition, Rudo was not able to explain the inconsistencies in his scientific conclusions. Rudo’s unprofessional approach to this important matter does a disservice to public health and environmental protection in North Carolina. It doesn’t help that political special interest groups perpetuate his exaggerations and fuel alarm among citizens for their own purposes.

Tom Reeder

Assistant Secretary for the Environment

Department of Environmental Quality

Randall Williams, MD

Deputy Secretary for Health Services

Department of Health and Human Services

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==

DARK LORD

JIMMY BROUGHTON

GOVERNMENT RELATIONS GROUP--WOMBLE CARLYLE

THOM TILLIS

U.S. SENATOR FOR NORTH CAROLINA

BRAD LANGSTON

CONSTITUENT LIAISON AT OFFICE OF CONGRESSMAN MARK WALKER

CATHERINE L. TRUITT

SENIOR EDUCATION ADVISOR, OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR (NC)

LINDSEY MORTON

SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE GOVERNOR, STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

ANDREW HEATH

STATE BUDGET DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, OFFICE OF STATE MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET

MATTHEW MCKILLIP

POLICY DIRECTOR AT OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

KEITH WERNER

SECRETARY, NORTH CAROLINA DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY/ NORTH CAROLINA STATE CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

MEREDITH MCCULLEN

SCHEDULING DIRECTOR AT OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR, STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA

KASEY GINSBERG

DEPUTY POLICY DIRECTOR AT STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA, OFFICE OF GOVERNOR MCCRORY

==

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==

<div style=" background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://www.ecowatch.com/erin-brockovich-hexavalent-chromium-1975027666.html</div>

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As news about North Carolina's governor and his administration <a href="http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article94899332.html" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">downplaying the risks</a> of <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/drinking-teflon-chemicals-water-1968474975.html" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">drinking water contaminated </a>with hexavalent chromium unfolds, two leading environmental health advocates are pushing the Obama administration to finally set a nationwide standard for the highly toxic chemical.

<a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/search/?q=Erin+Brockovich" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">Erin Brockovich</a>, a noted environmental health advocate and the Environmental Working Group (EWG) President Ken Cook called on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to stop dragging its feet and move quickly to set a tough national standard, known as a Maximum Contaminant Level or MCL, for the ubiquitous carcinogen found in millions of Americans' tap water.

In a <a href="http://cdn.ewg.org/sites/default/files/EPA%20Cr-6%20letter.pdf" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">joint letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy</a>, Brockovich and Cook wrote:

<blockquote style=" margin: 1em 0px; border-left: 10px solid rgb(78, 147, 66); padding-left: 20px;">We write with deep concern about this continued delay. It is clear that the delay is sowing confusion among state and local regulators, utilities and the public about how much hexavalent chromium is safe in drinking water. This confusion is resulting in many Americans' exposure to unregulated levels of hexavalent chromium that federal, state and independent scientists agree pose health hazards.</blockquote>

The request comes as a top state health official in North Carolina resigned in protest over meddling by Gov. Pat McCrory and his staff. McCrory sought to retract "do-not-drink" warnings directed at some residents whose tap water comes from wells likely tainted by hexavalent chromium from nearby Duke Energy coal-burning facilities.

The situation in North Carolina is, in part, a result of the absence of a stringent nationwide health-protective EPA standard, argued Brockovich and Cook:

<blockquote style=" margin: 1em 0px; border-left: 10px solid rgb(78, 147, 66); padding-left: 20px;">States like North Carolina, where industrial byproducts like <a href="http://www.ecowatch.com/search/?q=coal+ash+" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">coal ash</a> increase the risk of hexavalent chromium contamination, need a federal mandate to set strong, health-protective standards for levels of the contaminant in drinking water. Without it, states will continue to use inconsistent and potentially unsafe guidelines and leave citizens confused about whether their drinking water is safe.</blockquote>

<a href="http://www.ewg.org/research/chromium6-in-tap-water" target="_blank" style=" text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(0, 51, 153); outline: none;">A report</a> issued by EWG back in December 2010 found hexavalent chromium in tap water from 31 of 35 American cities.

"It's high time EPA put in place a stringent national standard to protect Americans from drinking water contaminated with hexavalent chromium," Cook said in a separate statement.

"A lack of a federal standard and the ongoing delay in setting one, are confusing utilities, states and citizens about what level of hexavalent chromium in drinking water is safe. Until EPA acts, we will likely continue to see the situation happening in North Carolina unfold in other states."

</div>

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==

In September 2010, scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency came to a startling conclusion: Even a small amount of a chemical compound commonly found in tap water may cause cancer.

The compound, hexavalent chromium, gained infamy in the Oscar-winning film Erin Brockovich, based on the David-vs.-Goliath legal duel between desert dwellers in Hinkley, Calif., and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. The film ends in Hollywood fashion, with the corporate polluter paying $333 million to people suffering from illnesses.

But in real life, the drama continues. More than 70 million Americans drink traces of chromium every day, according to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research organization.

TOXIC INFLUENCE is an ongoing series of reports exploring the nexus between industry, science and policy.

This story is being produced in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity.

And now, more than a decade after the film, EPA scientists cite “clear evidence” that the chemical compound, also known as chromium (VI), can cause cancer. The federal agency was poised to announce its findings in 2011, a step almost certain to trigger stricter drinking-water standards to prevent new cancers and deaths.

The chemical industry’s trade association and chief lobbyist, the American Chemistry Council, urged the EPA to wait for more research, a common practice to delay action on toxic chemicals. However, Vincent Cogliano, the soft-spoken head of EPA’s chemical-assessment program, rebuffed the powerful group, writing in an April 2011 letter that “strong” new research was already available.

Ten months later, the EPA reversed itself, quietly posting a notice on the Internet that it was pushing back the release of its findings for at least four more years. Environmentalists were stunned at the reason: The agency would wait for the results of new studies costing $4 million and paid for by the American Chemistry Council.

The EPA decided to wait at the urging of a panel of scientists chosen to give an unbiased review of the chromium findings. But the EPA doesn’t vet these scientists directly, instead handing the task over to outside contractors. An investigation by the Center for Public Integrity found that several of the panelists had worked on behalf of PG&E to defend the company in the Brockovich lawsuits.

President Obama pledged during his 2008 campaign to halt meddling and interference in government science. The president put restoring integrity to science on his short list of priorities in his first inaugural address, right after fixing the economy and before health care reform. “We'll restore science to its rightful place,” he said.

Ouster of Scientist from EPA  Panel Shows Industry Clout

The story of chromium (VI), full of twists and turns, offers a case study in how the Obama administration has failed to shield science at the EPA from industry influence.

Companies with a stake in chromium have borrowed from the Big Tobacco playbook, using science to create doubt. Ever since the brassy Brockovich knocked on doors in Hinkley to organize a class-action lawsuit, scientists paid by industry have tried to convince the courts and regulators that chromium (VI) poses no health risk.

Some of those scientists ended up on the panel chosen to review the EPA’s chromium findings, the Center for Public Integrity found:

Three of the five panelists who urged delay had worked on industry's behalf in the Hinkley court cases.

One of those scientists was retained by PG&E in the company’s ongoing chromium cleanup in Hinkley at the same time he was serving on the EPA panel.

Another scientist who urged the EPA to wait for the American Chemistry Council studies served as a consultant on those studies.

“You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to realize that this is corrupt and unacceptable,” contends Rena Steinzor, a law professor at the University of Maryland and president of the Center for Progressive Reform, a think tank that recently published a report on the chemical industry’s influence.

Companies with a stake in chromium have borrowed from the Big Tobacco playbook,

using science to create doubt.

Those members served on the EPA’s toxic-chemical-assessment program, the Integrated Risk Information System. IRIS, as it is known, is the pure science upon which clean air and water rules are based. But IRIS has become a major bottleneck, delaying new federal and state air and water standards amid industry influence and other factors. Critics say the EPA has only itself to blame.

Since October, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has declined interview requests to discuss IRIS or loopholes that open the door for potential conflicts of interest. Yet Jackson is pushing reform before she leaves office this week that would address some of the conflicts unearthed in the Center’s review, and cited by environmental activists.

And recently the EPA decided to move up its timetable to complete its chromium assessment to later this year.

Case study of industry’s muscle

The issue of scientists with industry ties serving on special EPA peer review panels goes beyond chromium. One out of every six scientists appointed to such panels since Obama took office had been a primary author of research articles funded by the American Chemistry Council over the past dozen years.

In all, 11 of the 68 members appointed to EPA panels assessing chemical health hazards were significant authors on studies funded by the ACC, a review of the council’s research database reveals. That number does not capture all scientists backed by industry, just those with work funded by the ACC. The authors of the hexavalent chromium studies, for example, are not included.

One scientist who has served on several EPA panels and co-written more than a dozen ACC-funded studies said that working with industry does not necessarily suggest a conflict.

“Scientists by and large want to get at the truth, so this really becomes more a matter of a perception of a problem than a real problem, in my opinion,” said Frederick J. Miller, an independent consultant who once worked at the Hamner Institutes for Health Sciences, a North Carolina research institute formed in the 1970s by leaders from 11 major chemical companies.

“The people that serve on these panels ... know if somebody is trying to make an argument that doesn’t hold water,” said Miller, who began his career in government.

However, studies have shown that when industry pays for research, it may influence the outcome. A 1998 analysis  of more than 100 articles published on secondhand smoke reported that 37 percent found no health risk. At least 74 percent of the articles exonerating cigarette smoke were written by scientists with ties to the tobacco industry.

The American Chemistry Council has a stake in the outcome of research. Lobby disclosure forms from 2011 reveal that the ACC lobbied the EPA on its assessments of three highly controversial chemicals: dioxin, formaldehyde and chromium (VI). The group boasts on its Web site that “in 2012, we helped defeat or amend 281 chemical regulation and product ban proposals.”

The ACC, whose members such as ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, Merck and Procter & Gamble are a who’s who of the Fortune 500, is one of the freest-spending lobby groups on Capitol Hill. In 2011, it laid out $12.6 million on lobbying, four times the amount spent by the National Rifle Association.

David Fischer, a senior director at the ACC, defended the group’s research program. “We feel we have an obligation to step up and fund studies to assist the agency — whether it’s EPA or others — to answer questions that might be posed about chemicals that we manufacture,” he said.

Asked if any of the ACC’s studies had ever shown that a chemical was more toxic than previously thought, Fischer replied, “I'm not aware of one right at this moment.”

The ACC said it was not involved in selecting the peer reviewers studying chromium (VI). “EPA’s peer reviewers were selected by EPA. They were vetted in the normal peer review process from EPA and we from the ACC do not have any direct links to these people,” said Ann Mason, the ACC scientist who commissioned the group’s new studies on chromium.

However, few scientists in the world specialize in chromium, a compound used to add color to paints, make stainless steel, add finish to chrome and inhibit rust. During its lawsuits, PG&E hired several of these scientists as expert witnesses; some say the debate over the compound’s toxicity caused lasting splits in the tight-knit scientific world.

One of PG&E’s key experts was Steven Patierno, a former professor of pharmacology at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences who had conducted numerous studies on the metal. Patierno, now the deputy director of the Duke Cancer Institute, has been an expert defense witness in seven chromium lawsuits. He hasn’t wavered in his view that drinking low doses of chromium (VI) does not cause cancer.

By early 2011, Patierno was selected for the peer review panel critiquing the EPA’s chromium (VI) findings. At a public meeting on May 12, 2011, he revealed a potential conflict of interest. There’s no recording or transcript of the meeting. Nothing in the EPA’s public record reveals the conflict. Two EPA officials who were there say they cannot recall what Patierno said. Patierno himself declined requests for an interview.

Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist at the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council, took notes at the meeting and said that Patierno revealed he was an investigator — though not a principal investigator — on the American Chemistry Council studies.

Asked if any of the ACC's studies had ever shown that a chemical was more toxic than previously thought, Fischer replied, "I'm not aware of one right at this moment."

The ACC’s Mason disputes that Patierno was involved. But Travis O’Brien, one of the principal investigators on the studies and a former colleague of Patierno’s at George Washington University, told the Center for Public Integrity that Patierno was a consultant on the research.

Max Costa, now a professor at New York University’s medical school, knows Patierno well. When Costa taught at the University of Texas Medical School, Patierno worked in his laboratory. The two published research together. Costa said they became rivals when they took opposite sides in the PG&E lawsuit.

He argues that Patierno’s opinions are not credible because he works for the chrome industry. “He’s been a paid a large amount of money by them, and he’s totally biased because of that.”

Patierno levels the same charge against Costa, attacking his conclusions in a lawsuit as “unsubstantiated” and “severely flawed.” Patierno criticized  the EPA for even citing Costa’s papers among hundreds of others in its report. In his peer review comments, Patierno said two of Costa’s articles should not be taken seriously because “they were written and published at a time when the senior author was actively engaged as an expert witness for the plaintiffs in high-profile hexavalent chromium lawsuits.”

Patierno was an expert witness for PG&E in the same lawsuits. When he was asked in a 2006 lawsuit if he discloses his expert-witness work for industry when submitting articles on chromium (VI), he answered no. Patierno said his articles were based on laboratory studies that were not relevant to his legal work.

Costa was originally listed as a candidate for the EPA peer review panel, according to documents obtained by the Center through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Costa says he disclosed his work in the PG&E lawsuit but doesn’t know if that work disqualified him. An EPA official said privately said that Costa’s work as an expert witness may have kept him off the panel.

Industry ties and EPA panel

Patierno was not the only defense litigation expert who served on the EPA's IRIS panel. Two others were John P. Wise Sr., a toxicology professor at the University of Southern Maine, and Joshua Hamilton, a chief academic and scientific officer at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass., which is affiliated with Brown University.

Wise, who worked in Patierno's laboratory as a graduate student, said that in 1997 he worked for a consulting firm and was assigned to do research for an industry client in the Hinkley lawsuit — but that he has not accepted industry money in the past 15 years. Wise said he does not believe that "such limited contact so long ago" influenced his opinion.

Hamilton was a defense expert in a PG&E chromium lawsuit that settled in 2006 and worked for the company as a consultant again starting in 2009, according to PG&E. PG&E acknowledged that it hired  Hamilton in May 2011 — the same month the EPA panel met — to consult on the ongoing chromium cleanup in Hinkley. PG&E said it paid him $110,000.

Hamilton appeared before a California Regional Water Quality Control Board on June 8, 2011, to speak on behalf of PG&E about its cleanup of Hinkley. The EPA peer review panel issued its final comments one month later, on July 6, 2011.

In 2001, Hamilton said he was surprised to get a $100,000 check in the mail before doing any work as an expert witness.

Hamilton’s consulting work included criticism of the California EPA’s own scientific assessment of chromium (VI), which was nearly identical to the EPA’s.

In an eight-page statement to the water board dated July 9, 2011, Hamilton wrote that the state agency’s findings did not represent “established science.” He described California’s regulations as “overly protective.”

The PG&E director in charge of the Hinkley cleanup, Sheryl Bilbrey, said Hamilton’s work should not have affected his objectivity. “PG&E expects all of our experts to give us unbiased advice,” she said. “So we would never ask anyone to change their scientific opinion to fit something that we would want.”

Asked whether it was appropriate for an EPA peer reviewer to be working simultaneously for PG&E, the ACC’s Fischer said, “That sounds like a conflict of interest to me. Generally, the way you get around it is you just — you don’t appoint that particular scientist to that particular panel.”

It was not the first time Hamilton had been paid a substantial sum by PG&E. In 2001, Hamilton said he was surprised to get a $100,000 check in the mail before doing any work as an expert witness. According to his deposition, Hamilton talked to PG&E’s lawyers about the check and learned that it was on top of his hourly fee. PG&E ultimately paid Hamilton nearly $300,000 for his work on the lawsuit.

“That’s completely outrageous,” said Francesca Grifo, director of scientific integrity at the nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists. “I don’t know how anybody could stand up logically and say I got $100,000 but it didn’t affect how I handled this.”

Hamilton declined interview requests.

EPA farms screening to consultants

Working for a chemical company appears to violate the EPA’s guidelines on conflicts of interest. The EPA’s Peer Review Handbook says peer reviewers should appear to be impartial, defined as not having anything that “may cause a reasonable person with knowledge of the relevant facts to question the expert’s ability to carry out official duties without bias or influence.”

The handbook offers, as an example of a conflict, a scientist paid to be an expert witness for a chemical company in a class-action lawsuit.

Yet, the EPA doesn’t ask scientists if they’ve worked as expert witnesses or have taken money from industry. Instead, it turns that job over to private companies, which handle conflict-of-interest reviews in secret. All of the information the vendors collect, including financial disclosure forms, is “considered private and non-disclosable to EPA or outside entities except as required by law,” the EPA policy says.

The contractor examines candidates’ published work, and prospective panelists fill out a questionnaire detailing potential conflicts. Once the panel is picked, the contractor certifies to the EPA that “no unresolved actual or potential conflict of interest issues” remain.

What’s more, the ethics guidelines are not binding on contractors, and the EPA handbook says the agency should not override decisions on conflicts of interest. “EPA should not attempt to make any changes in the contractor’s conclusions as this would compromise the independence of the peer review conducted by the contractor,” the handbook says.

The EPA said it set the system up this way to ensure impartiality. But, the Center found, this structure helps shield the very conflicts the agency aims to avoid.

A year ago, the Center sought information on the screening of IRIS panelists through a FOIA request. The EPA withheld most documents, including emails between the vendors and agency.

Officials at Eastern Research Group Inc., the Massachusetts firm that vetted the peer reviewers on the chromium (VI) panel, did not return emails and phone calls. An official at another company handling peer reviews, Versar Inc., said he was prohibited by EPA from talking.

The EPA’s administrator, Jackson, and its chemical-assessment officials declined requests for on-the-record interviews. But an EPA official acknowledged privately that the agency was not fully aware of the chromium (VI) peer reviewers’ ties to PG&E. The official defended the use of private vendors, contending that if the EPA chose peer reviewers, it could pick scientists it knew would be friendly.

However, the EPA routinely selects scientists for other advisory panels. Critics said it’s not clear how checking financial disclosure forms would taint the process. The Peer Review Handbook does note that checking disclosure forms would activate the Federal Advisory Committee Act, a law meant to make panels more open.

“It’s bizarre,” Grifo said of the EPA’s secretive screening process. “At its core it’s supposed to increase the public trust in the system. If it looks like the whole system is rigged to begin with, then why should a citizen trust it?”

The EPA said it was working to reduce the potential for conflicts. “We are exploring the best ways to provide for public review of contract-managed peer review panels and ensure that contractors are held accountable for their assessment of any conflicts of interest,” the agency said in a statement.

The ‘pure science’ bottleneck

Some 700 new chemicals hit the market each year, adding to the tens of thousands already in use. Yet the EPA has assessed only 557 chemicals since the IRIS program began in 1985. A typical review takes six to eight years, sometimes much longer. It took 27 years for the agency to issue a partial assessment of dioxin, a byproduct of plastics manufacturing and burning.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) concluded in 2008 that the IRIS program was so bogged down that it was in danger of becoming obsolete.

In 2009, EPA Administrator Jackson made bold promises within her first weeks in office to fix the program. She pledged to finish many more assessments and to try to complete each one within two years. Since May 2009, the EPA said it completed 24 IRIS assessments, “double the number” completed in the same time period prior to May 2009.

Yet its overall progress remains slow, and in the past two years, the program produced as few assessments as ever. Last year, the EPA planned to complete 40 assessments. It finished three.

The reasons for the logjam are complex. But it has become common for industry and its allies inside the federal government to push for delay. “Even a single delay can have far-reaching, time-consuming consequences, in some cases requiring that the assessment process essentially start over,” the GAO reported.

Some 700 new chemicals hit the market each year. Yet the EPA has assessed only 557 since the IRIS program began in 1985.

In the case of chromium (VI), evidence shows that industry worked closely with the EPA as the agency conducted its assessment. On Oct. 8, 2009, a scientist at a law firm representing chemical companies complained in an email that the EPA was pushing ahead on its assessments without waiting for studies to address “gaps” in the science.

“EPA moved Chrom VI up by about two years after ‘we’ entered into a process of planning research with them to address gaps,” wrote Richard Canady, a former scientist at the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB), who was then working at the private law firm of McKenna, Long & Aldridge. “I’d like to make a case for EPA planning ahead in cooperation with industry.”

Canady’s email was sent to Nancy Beck, a toxicologist at OMB who reviewed the EPA’s findings. Beck referred Canady to an American Chemistry Council official for help in gathering data. A 2009 investigation by a subcommittee of the House Science and Technology Committee criticized Beck for improperly interfering with IRIS assessments during the George W. Bush administration. Beck now works for the ACC. She did not return a call last week seeking comment; an ACC spokesman said Tuesday he would seek her perspective.

In a recent interview, Canady said he could not recall the precise details from his email and declined to reveal clients for which he was working. But Canady said he thought the process of planning research with the EPA “wasn’t that formal.” Instead, industry scientists would call EPA scientists to find out what new data would help them in their chromium (VI) assessment, he said.

His 2009 email also said, “Peter made a point to me the other day about how boron and methylene chloride were good examples of working together on developing data ahead of assessments in ways that influenced the outcome.”

Canady said this was a reference to Peter Preuss, then the director of the EPA’s National Center for Environmental Assessment, which oversees IRIS.

The EPA originally planned to issue its chromium (VI) assessment last summer, giving the ACC time to finish its new studies. However, under Jackson’s imperative to quicken assessments, the EPA moved up its timeline by six to nine months.

When the EPA’s Cogliano rebuffed the ACC’s request for a delay, the trade association turned its attention to the peer review panel.

Critics say the industry uses comments on chemicals that are under review to overwhelm the agency.

Of the 49 public comments submitted to the EPA on chromium, the American Chemistry Council and its research partners authored 29 of them, totaling 1,661 pages.

“There’s a very elaborate process that involves multiple opportunities for industry to pick away and blast away and confuse and overload the staff of IRIS, and the IRIS staff reacts by trying to address each and every one of industry’s concerns,” said law professor Steinzor.

“The chemical industry has made IRIS its leading target, one of its leading targets, for spoil in the current age of greed,” Steinzor said

Of the 49 public comments submitted to the EPA on chromium before the peer-review panel met, the American Chemistry Council and its research partners authored 29 of them, totaling 1,661 pages. In addition, 10 other comments totaling 137 pages came from industry urging the EPA to wait for the ACC studies.

As the EPA stood poised to announce potential new safeguards for chromium (VI), the ACC had hired a scientific consulting firm, ToxStrategies, to manage the $4 million studies of mice and rats given the chemical for 90 days.

The panel met May 12, 2011, at a Hilton hotel near Reagan National Airport. Patierno was highly critical of the EPA’s findings and suggested the agency “absolutely consider the extensive new data being provided.” Hamilton and Wise agreed.

In a recent interview, Wise said he wasn’t entirely familiar with ToxStrategies’ findings, which hadn’t yet been published. But he assumed the delay would be short, only a few months. The EPA initially said the delay would take four years. Later, the agency said the assessment would be done this year.

Anatoly Zhitkovich, a professor at Brown University who chaired the EPA peer review panel, was upset with the results and wrote his own review published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, according to Costa, a close colleague. Zhitkovich declined an interview request, but his article supported the findings of the EPA.

In lobbying for delay, the American Chemistry Council quietly enlisted the help of a small office within the U.S. Small Business Administration.

SBA Chief Counsel for Advocacy Winslow Sargeant, an electrical engineer by training, submitted a comment to the EPA on Oct. 5, 2011, challenging its scientific conclusions and urging it to delay its chromium assessment pending completion of the ACC studies. Winslow cited the peer review comments from Hamilton and Wise to support his argument.

But emails obtained through FOIA by the advocacy group Center for Effective Government revealed that the ACC helped shape the SBA letter. An ACC lobbyist, Randy Schumacher, sent an email to Sargeant’s office on June 28, 2011, asking for its help.

“Administrator Jackson calling upon her to stop the Cr6 risk assessment process to do exactly as EPA’s peer reviewers deemed advisable,” Schumacher wrote. “Since it appears EPA needs to hear from more constituents for it to listen to its own peer review team, would SBA be willing to send a letter to Ms. Jackson to weigh in on this matter?”

Later emails from Schumacher suggested editing changes to Sargeant’s letter. The SBA official has not responded to interview requests.

Frustration prompts reform push

Now the EPA is in the process of revamping its IRIS program once more. Cogliano has proposed releasing the names of prospective peer reviewers in advance, giving the public an opportunity to explore conflicts. “This will improve transparency in the peer review process,” the EPA said in a statement. The changes could be formally announced this week, as Jackson departs.

In 2001, siblings lean against the entrance to one of the houses which were bought and razed by Pacific Gas & Electric after the company was found to have polluted the ground water. David McNew/Getty Images

The ACC’s Fischer says he’s in favor of a conflict-of-interest policy that allows industry to participate on peer review panels. “Bias in and of itself should not necessarily disqualify a particular scientist from serving on the panel,” he said. “Industry perspective is a bias but so [is] every other perspective.”

The EPA is also weighing whether to set “stopping points” for new research, a deadline after which no additional studies would be considered. Kenneth Olden, a senior EPA official who oversees IRIS, has proposed announcing assessments two years in advance, giving industry time to complete new studies.

Such proposals drew criticism at an EPA meeting in November, with an environmental group’s scientist stating bluntly that industry seeks delays because it wants IRIS to fail. His comments drew faint gasps from a conference room filled almost entirely with industry consultants.

“The practice of waiting for one more study to be completed, as has happened repeatedly under IRIS — especially when that study is to be conducted by an entity with a vested financial interest in tilting the outcome — simply must stop,” said the scientist, Richard Denison, with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund. “Simply put, a decision delayed is health protection denied.”

The Center for Public Integrity is a non-profit independent investigative news outlet.

For more of its stories go to publicintegrity.org.

This story has been clarified to reflect that, as an employee of a consulting firm, John P. Wise Sr. worked for an industry client in the PG&E lawsuit but that he was never told the identity of the client.

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