ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD
August 9, 1990
TOWN OF CORTLAND,
Petitioner,
PCB 90—43
V.
)
(Variance)
ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL
PROTECTION AGENCY,
Respondent.
DISSENTING OPINION (by J.D. Dumelle):
The Town of Cortland and the IEPA in their filings give both
inconsistent and incorrect statements.
Cortland states, “The Petitioner does not consider the
radiological quality of this community water supply to be a
significant short term health risk”. (Petition, P. 7). Yet
attached to the Petition are pages from the USEPA’s Office of
Drinking Water (January, 1989) titled “Status of the
Radionuclides Proposal” which state:
All radionuclides considered in this proposal
have been verified as belonging to Group A,
known human carcinogens. Therefore, the MCLG
(Maximum Contaminant Level Goals) for each
radionuclide will be proposed as zero.
A carcinogen is considered by most medical and scientific
experts to have no threshold. That means any amount can induce
cancer. Thus the presence of radium in Cortland’s water is a
short term health risk. Radium admittedly causes head and bone
cancer and may also cause leukemia.
What are the risks in drinking Cortland’s water? They are
quite high. Using the data placed into the Braidwood case, PCB
89—212, by Dr. William Hallenbeck, (and inexplicably not
referenced in IEPA’s Recommendation in the instant case) the risk
from drinking Cortland water at 8.1 pCi/l is l-in—8,850 over a
lifetime. This is far higher than the usual l—in—l,000,000 risk
used to regulate pesticide residues. It is 113 times higher!
The IEPA in its Recommendation discusses water softening
using salt (pp. 6—7). It points out that, if salt is used., the
sodium content of the drinking water will be increased and “may
create a significant risk to persons who are hypertensive or who
have heart problems...” Yet in its 20 years of existence the IEPA
has never proposed to the Pollution Control Board a limit on the
1 14—59
sodium content of public drinking water supplies. If sodium is
in fact a health hazard why is not the public protected from it?
For these reasons, I dissent-
I, Dorothy M. Gunn, Clerk\.-o’f the Illinois Pollution Control
Board hereby certify that the above Dissenting Opinion was
submitted on the
______________
day of
_____________,
1990.
Dorothy M. 9~nn, Clerk
Illinois Pollution Control Board
:cob D. DumelLe
ard Member
114—60