ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
    Nlay 5, 1988
    COUNTY OF LAKE (VERNON HILLS
    WATER SYSTEM),
    Petitioner,
    v.
    )
    PCB 87—198
    ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
    )
    PROTECTION AGENCY,
    Respondent,
    and
    TINA SANTOPOALO, LAKE COUNTY
    )
    DEFENDERS, VILLAGE OF VERNON
    HILLS, NORTH SUBURBAN GROUP OF
    THE GREAT LAKES CHAPTER OF THE
    SIERRA CLUB, MARK D. BOORAS, AND
    )
    F.T. MIKE GRAHAM,
    Intervenors.
    DISSENTING OPINION (by J.D. Dumelle):
    My reason for dissenting is the public health hazard of the
    radium content of the drinking water, especially as it pertains
    to children and infants,.
    Radium is an acknowledged carcinogen.. Most scientists agree
    that no threshold exists for a carcinogen~. Thus any exposure may
    be sufficient to begin a cancer,.. One cannot then interpret a
    “70—year risk” as being completely riskless until May 31, 1991
    when compliance is mandated in this variance.
    Besides the lack of a threshold there is the high risk in
    the standard itself. A scientist at USEPA, C~. Richard Cothern,
    in a June 30, 1986 letter (Lake County Defenders Ex. 32) gave the
    current risk as 0.4 X l0~ over a lifetime. That number
    translates to a l—in—25,000 risk which is 40 times greater than
    the 1—in—l,000,000 risk which USEPA usually uses for cancer risks
    when setting maximum contaminant levels..
    The Journal of the American Medical Association paper
    “Association of Leukemia with Radium Groundwater Contamination”
    (August 2, 1985) raises this additional issue. If leukemia is
    indeed caused by groundwater high in radium then an additional
    hazard besides bone cancer and sinus cavity cancer is present.
    (Ex. 21 in R85—l4).
    89—89
    —2—
    Another paper, “Drinking Water and Cancer Incidence in Iowa”
    published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 1982 points
    to additional types of cancers as possibly being caused by radium
    in drinking water. These are cancers of the lung and bladder in
    males and cancers of the lung and breast in females. (Ex 26E in
    R85—l4).
    Finally, there is the largely unquantified higher risk for
    infants and young children. The Board’s proceeding R85—l4
    contains as Ex. 261 pp. 30—33 from Dr. Edward J. Calabrese’s book
    “Pollutants and High—Risk Groups.” Absorption rates for heavy
    metals for infants and young children are many times higher than
    for adults (Fig. 7, p. 30).. And radiation sensitivity for a
    fetus is 20 times that for an adult (Fig.. 8, p. 33).
    If the variance had been written to exclude residential
    development (where infants and chiJdren reside) and include only
    commercial and industrial projects this greater hazard would have
    been avoided.
    cob D Dumelle
    /Cha i rman
    I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control
    Board, hereby certify that the above Dissenting Opinion was
    submitted on the
    /O~Z.
    day of
    ~
    ,
    1988.
    oO”i~,~L
    Dorothy M. Gunn,
    40ø,.,4~
    Clerk
    Illinois Pollution Control Board
    89—90

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