I worry about my kids and what they are exposed to in this world.  They are the main reason that I work for NRDC and believe me, there is plenty to do around here to protect them.  If you pore through the Switchboard blogs (some light reading for bedtime, perhaps), you can definitely see this Administration’s blatant failure to protect our kids, not to mention those of us who are a bit more “seasoned”.  Just this month, the court ruled that EPA had basically broken the law by conveniently allowing coal fired power plants to ignore safeguards to reduce air pollution – including mercury (one of my colleagues and an attorney on the case, John Walke, provides the details here and here).  This is just the most recent example of what has become a lost agency.   

Of all of the things that upset me about this Administration’s EPA, it is the basic disregard for public health and PEOPLE that distresses me the most.  Case in point is an email to EPA’s Deputy Administrator, Marcus Peacock (which I have included below) from a Mom who just wants to protect her kids.  This email was first posted to Mr. Peacock’s blog and not only does it describe the daily challenges of parents trying to protect their children from environmental harms, it shows the appallingly cavalier attitude of the EPA towards such concerns.

I’ll let this little exchange speak for itself.

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EMAIL FROM CONCERNED MOM: 

Dear Mr. Peacock,

I think starting a blog with the idea of having more transparency is wonderful. I am glad to have the opportunity to express my views to an actual person (well, hopefully, anyway). In fact, I would be more than happy to receive a response. I have included my email.  

I have a somewhat short story for you. I’ll keep it as brief as I can. I am the mother of two small children, lovely girls age 2 and 4. Because I adore them and think the care of all children is all of our sacred charge, I have done absolutely everything that I can to ensure their health – now and 20 years from now. I’m a bright woman and I’m an educated woman. I don’t just run around screaming, “The sky is falling” over every scary chain email I get. When I see something that concerns me, say in a news article or on a blog, I start researching it, checking the science, looking for studies, journal articles, by universities, cancer centers, government agencies both here and abroad. I go to the EPA website, in fact, among a number of others.

From the time I was pregnant with my first child, like any reasoning person, as I have discovered a potential threat, I have addressed it to the best of my ability. I didn’t take any medications when I was pregnant, I did not use artificial sweeteners (once I found out about them, that is). When I heard about heavy metals, I reduced the types of fish I ate to only shellfish, salmon, and small whitefish. I also installed an additional filtering system for my water as it was impossible to tell what toxins were in bottled water, since it’s not regulated very well (and, of course, there are the plastic bottles). When I found out about the levels of hormones, pesticides, etc., and possible contamination by E. Coli in meat, eggs, fruits, leafy greens, vegetables, etc., even after washing thoroughly, well, I went right out and began buying almost solely organic and free range foods – even though that meant that my family’s food costs more than doubled – and even though that was no guarantee when it came to E. Coli either thanks to contamination of the ground water. When I started finding out about the dangers of the chemicals in my household – including those in my babies’ soaps, lotions, and shampoos – I got rid of them and started buying only products for which I could identify all the ingredients – no easy task, let me tell you, though these products seem to be working just as well and often even better than those more expensive potions I was buying in the grocery store. Though I breastfed both of my children, they did drink water and juice from a bottle as they got older. And when my first child was a baby, I had to work outside the home, so she was given my breast milk in a bottle – a bottle made of polycarbonate plastic. I’m sure you’ve heard about polycarbonate plastic and the issues with it, though I had not, of course, at that time.  

So then one day, when my youngest child was about a year and a half, I saw an article about rocket fuel in babies’ blood – not just a couple of babies either, but in samples of babies’ blood from different areas all over the country. Our country. I have to tell you, I cried for a week when I read that. Just could not stop. Shortly after reading that article, I was getting ready to sell those soft snuggly footie pajamas both my kids wore all through the winter when they were babies, and I accidentally rubbed my finger against the first tag, showing what it was made of, and saw a second tag, outlining how to care for the garment’s flame retardancy. FLAME RETARDANCY. My babies were sleeping in flame retardant, which, by the way, is found in babies’ blood along with bisphenol A and a number of other not-naturally-occurring chemical compounds and mercury and lead – oh, and arsenic, which until only a couple of years ago, all the lumber used to build children’s playgrounds, and say, our back deck, was soaked in. Many of these chemicals and metals are not naturally flushed from the body, as I’m sure you know. And we have no real idea what the long term effects are of even one of them, much less their combination – in our babies. Do you understand? IN OUR BABIES. Though, of course, the science does show, incontrovertibly, that they have hormonal effects, or that they are cancer causing, or that they cause brain damage.

Now I sort of assume that if you’ve stuck with me this far, perhaps you can see where I’m going with this. I have been doing absolutely everything that one person can do to protect my kids. I have been given an impossible job, because the agencies – and I understand that you are only one of those agencies – charged with protecting us, whose sworn and basically only duty it is to protect us (the consumers), are failing more than miserably. I pray to a god I’m not even sure I believe in anymore that you will do your job. 

Most sincerely,

Shannon McLeish 

Posted by: Shannon | February 11, 2008 at 04:00 PM <http://flowoftheriver.epa.gov/my_weblog/2008/02/what-one-man-ca.html#comment-101236120> 

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RESPONSE FROM EPA’S MARCUS PEACOCK: 

Shannon, thanks for your story. I can't say every action this Agency takes (or doesn't take) is one you would agree with, but your story should remind us why we are here and, I hope, prompt us to continue to look for ways to improve how we do what we do.

Posted by: Marcus | February 14, 2008 at 01:58 PM <http://flowoftheriver.epa.gov/my_weblog/2008/02/what-one-man-ca.html#comment-101997500> 

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Niiiice, Mr. Peacock.  Thanks for your “concern” and your pledge to keep working to improve the agency.  Maybe next time you can take more than 2 minutes out of your day to respond to someone who has obviously taken a lot of time to express her real fears about protecting her children.  This would’ve been a good time to talk about all of the great things the Agency is doing to address her fears – OH YEAH, that would mean that you would actually have to have great things to talk about….

Think about it.