U.S. Water News Online
PHOENIX -- Authorities are asking for more research into whether Colorado River water contaminated by a chemical used to make rocket fuel may have contributed to higher levels of potentially dangerous hormones in Yuma newborns.
``We don't want to scare the public because there's nothing to be scared about,'' said Ross Brechner, chief of the Arizona Department of Health Services epidemiology office, who presented his study's findings to the American Water Works Association annual convention in Denver. ``But we hope it will put more money into some sort of definitive study of the issue.''
Brechner studied the results of the state newborn screening program in Yuma, which takes all of its drinking water from the Colorado River, and Flagstaff, which uses no water from the river. He found slightly higher levels of the thyroid stimulating hormone in some Yuma babies.
Scientists believe ammonium perchlorate interferes with the thyroid's ability to regulate hormone production and can impair metabolism and growth, especially in young children. But so little is known for certain that federal officials can't even establish a safe level of exposure for the chemical.
``We don't know what this study means for sure, except that it adds to the picture,'' Brechner said.
He expects more feedback from other scientists when his work is published later this year in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Perchlorate seeped into the lower Colorado River, which provides drinking water for 20 million people in Nevada, Arizona and California, from an industrial complex outside Las Vegas.
Nevada officials have been monitoring levels since 1997 and have discovered high concentrations in Lake Mead.
Arizona also has measured perchlorate levels along the Colorado and in water delivered by the Central Arizona Project, which draws 1.5 million acre-feet a year from the river.
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