July 29, 2014

EPA regulation of vapor exposure of Trichloroethylene in the workplace: a public 

perspective. 

 As a member of the general public and a concerned citizen, I was very encouraged by 

the workshop here today. What I witnessed was a testament to the productivity and 

insight, which occurs when the EPA works alongside private industry to both advance 

science and protect the public health. We all know it has taken over thirty years for the 

EPA to overcome industry, their lobbyist and their allies on Capitol Hill to finally set in 

place meaningful regulation of trichloroethylene (TCE) and rightfully designate it as a 

human carcinogen. It was refreshing to see the many different alternatives and processes 

for degreasing operations that are now available to responsible members of the business 

community and to know the EPA also worked hand in hand with many of these 

companies to assist them in their efforts to shed their TCE dependence. It was most 

reassuring to finally see the EPA function as it was intended too by its founders. 

Unfortunately, this example was more an exception than the norm, through no fault of the 

EPA. 

 While I am encouraged by what I saw today, I do realize there remain staunch 

opponents backed by irresponsible members of our business community who continually 

seek opportunities to derail the EPA from its mission to protect the public health and 

environment. I would like to address once such example and how this relates to current 

EPA efforts to weed TCE from the market place. 

 On January 13th 2013, Senator Crapo sponsored two bills (S. 50, Ref. 1 and S. 53, Ref.

2) charging the U.S. EPA with the task of protecting children and communities from 
harmful chemicals by researching cancer clusters to identify their relation to toxic 

exposures. The bills also recognized the adverse effects of toxic exposures upon children

as a national concern. On the surface this is a most noble cause and is to be commended. 

 However, there are troubling contradictions in this Senator’s public statements and 

his confidence in the EPA. Take for example, a June 25th letter signed by the very same 

Senator Crapo (Ref. 3). In this letter, the Senator accused EPA Deputy Director, Dr. 

Barone, with “cherry picking” studies that would favor stricter regulation of TCE. 

Ironically, the study the Senator referred to in his statement (Johnson et. al. 2003) was 

part of the EPA’s IRIS process and was previously reviewed by the EPA Scientific 

Advisory Board (SAB) with no meaningful concerns raised to its credibility. Or 

usefulness. The Senator then launched an unwarranted direct personal attack upon Dr. 

Barone, the Deputy Director, by calling into question his academic and professional 

integrity. The Senator went so far as to suggest the Deputy Director’s position was 

acquired by fraudulent means and demanded a formal accounting of how Dr. Barone 

secured his current position as Deputy Director of EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and 

Pollution Prevention. According to Senator Crapo and his fellow signatories on the 

letter, Senators Vitter and Inhofe, the National Academy of Science was the authority to 

follow when conducting “appropriate chemical risk assessments” and not the EPA. In 

fact according to the letter, the EPA has a history of “poor management of the scientific 

process.”

 As a concerned citizen, I find the January 2013 bills sponsored by Senator Crapo and 

the June 25th letter cosigned by Senator Crap to EPA Assistant Administrator Jones, to be 

both contradictory and troubling. It seems to me, that our public leaders strive to appear 
as if their goal is to protect our health and advance science for the public good, but when 

the agency mandated by our Congress moves to protect the public good, a sudden 

schizophrenia manifested itself. In this alternate reality, the EPA suddenly transforms 

from the guardians of the environment and public health into an inept, inefficient and 

unscientific organization incapable of rendering any meaningful decisions. If the EPA is 

indeed so inept and untrustworthy as described in Senator Crapo’s letter, then why entrust 

them to execute the mission described in S. 50 and S. 53? 

 Protecting the public health is something all Americans want and desire. Delaying 

meaningful regulation, oversight and research into the adverse health affects of toxic 

chemicals and their exposures only benefits the pockets of polluters and industry. I fully 

expect that any action on the part of the EPA to protect the public health regarding TCE 

exposures including vapor intrusion and inhalation in the workplace to be countered by a 

move towards the National Academy by Senators Vitter, Inhofe and Crapo. This counter 

will most likely be in the form of a review of EPA’s work by a committee of the 

Academy prior to implementing any of EPA’s recommendations for regulation.

 The National Academy of Science is no stranger to this process and as mentioned 

earlier, appears to be polluters, and their allies, preferred venue for review of EPA’s 

procedures and work. Our issue at Camp Lejeune was also subjected to the whims of the 

Academy. Our brush with the Academy occurred in 2009, when the National Research 

Council (NRC) published a review of literature surrounding the pollutants at Camp 

Lejeune, which included TCE. The NRC committee found scientific evidence to support 

an association between our exposures at the base and disease to be limited. Shortly 

afterwards, we uncovered an undisclosed $600,000 (Ref. 4) contract between the
Academies had entered and Department of Defense to serve as a consultant and defend 

their findings at Camp Lejeune. The contract was negotiated and signed months before 

the report for Camp Lejeune was finalized. The contract was later dissolved by the 

Academies after news of its existence was revealed in the media. We also discovered an 

undisclosed conflict of interest concerning the peer review coordinator overseeing the 

finalization of the committee’s report on Camp Lejeune. The peer review coordinator 

was Dr. George Rusch, who was a thirty plus year Honeywell Ltd. employee. Following 

the release of the Camp Lejeune report by the NRC, we became aware that Dr. Rusch 

failed to address concerns of at least one of the peer reviewers critical of the NRC’s 

findings on Camp Lejeune. Why was an employee from a company tied to TCE pollution 

allowed to serve as the peer review coordinator for a report focusing primarily on 

people’s health effects form exposure to the same chemical? Dr. Rusch’s work has been 

praised and utilized by lobbyist from the Halogenated Solvents Industry Alliance to 

challenge EPA findings (Ref. 5). Yet this man was chosen by the National Academies to 

be an objective peer review coordinator for their Camp Lejeune report in 2009? 

 Fortunately for us, The NRC’s 2009 report on Camp Lejeune has been largely 

discredited and replaced by respectable science, including recently released studies by the 

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

 The ATSDR found links in adverse health outcomes for both the children born at 

Camp Lejeune and the Marines/Navy service personnel who served and worked aboard 

the base. TCE was heavily used at Camp Lejeune as a degreaser resulting in inhalation 

and dermal exposures. TCE is a primary contaminant in the base’s soil, air and 

groundwater. In addition to our exposures in drinking water aboard the base, many men 
and women service personnel were exposed inhalation hazards resulting from vapor 

intrusion emanating from massive underground plumes of TCE aboard the base, open air 

vats of the chemical used for degreasing engine parts, and the base wide use of TCE as a 

degreaser to clean personal weapons. The EPA has a mission to protect the public health. 

The EPA will continue to be severely limited in their ability to protect our health and the 

environment so long as we allow industry, their well-funded lobbyist, and their political 

allies on Capitol Hill to continue to interfere in the scientific process with the intent of 

delaying any meaningful regulation for the sake of profit.

 The issue of TCE as a carcinogen dragged on for decades. Thankfully, in 2011, the 

EPA rightfully recognized TCE as a carcinogen. In 1932 (Ref. 6) and again in 1952 (Ref. 

7), two curious articles appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association

regarding the industrial use of TCE. I will close with the observations written in 1932 by 

Dr. Carey P McCord: “Any manufacturer contemplating the use of trichloroethylene may 

find in it many desirable qualities. Too, in the absence of closed systems of operation, he 

may find in this solvent the source of disaster for exposed workmen.”

Michael Partain

968 N. Heron Circle

Winter Haven Fl., 33884

850-339-0828

strashni2002@yahoo.com