Fire retardant discovered in wastewater plants that discharge into

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Aug 11, 2008 | by Julia Scott

A new fire retardant product with unknown long-term impacts on human health and the environment has been discovered in two wastewater treatment plants that discharge into San Francisco Bay, according to a scientist with the San Francisco Estuary Institute who made the find.

The product, Firemaster 550, is one of California's most widely used brominated fire retardants and is routinely added to the polyurethane foam used in upholstered furniture to meet the state's stringent open-flame household fire protection rules.

Little is known about its chemical components, which were made public for the first time two weeks ago in a study that reported finding large concentrations of it in the dust of 19 Boston homes. But the fact that it is now also being found in wastewater plants has given scientists pause and prompted calls for more testing.

"I'd be willing to say that you could go to every wastewater treatment plant in the Bay Area and you could find the stuff," said Susan Klosterhaus, the San Francisco Estuary Institute environmental scientist who first identified the chemicals in wastewater by comparing them to a sample of Firemaster 550 she obtained from its manufacturer, Chemtura Corp.

"We don't know what the fate of this chemical is. We have no idea what its potential long-term toxic effects are. We don't know whether it metabolizes or degrades into other chemicals that are harmful."

Klosterhaus discovered the chemicals in her own home after having her sofa cushions tested for the presence of brominated flame retardants. The sofa was new, and she found plenty of them.

The information did not come as a surprise to her as an expert in the field, although she was surprised to later discover that Firemaster 550 was being used to coat as much as 50 percent of the foam in all upholstered furniture sold in California.

"The chemicals are used in such huge volumes, we need to know what's in our furniture and the implication of those chemicals we're exposed to on a daily basis," she said.

Firemaster 550 was first marketed in 2004 by Chemtura Corp. as an environmentally friendly replacement for PentaBDE, a former top- selling fire retardant that was phased out in the U.S. that same year due to health concerns.

Firemaster 550 hit the market without testing by the Environmental Protection Agency, which has depended on the company's own test results to determine whether there are any potential risks to aquatic species or human health.

The EPA also honored Chemtura's request to keep the two main ingredients of Firemaster 550 confidential, lest it undercut their market share.

Test data provided by Chemtura to the EPA showed the ingredients were a "high hazard concern" for both short-term and long-term ecotoxicity, meaning they could cause damage to fish, invertebrates or algae if they got into the water. Other human health testing by Chemtura showed there was little or no risk and the EPA downplayed the findings related to aquatic species.

Debra K. Durbin, Chemtura's director of corporate communications, said Firemaster 550 is a safe product and the company tested the product as required by the EPA.

"Chemtura evaluated the bromine component of Firemaster 550 in accordance with EPA guidance for toxicity and submitted the data for the EPA to review. Firemaster 550 was not fully commercialized until the EPA completed their assessment and determined that Firemaster 550 is not persistent, bioaccumulative or toxic to aquatic organisms."

The EPA asked Chemtura to conduct several other tests back in 2005 to determine potential effects on reproduction and development, and to study how easy it would be for the chemicals to migrate out of the foam and into the homes of Americans.

The agency is still awaiting the results, which are due by February 2009, according to Dale Kemery, a spokesman for the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.

"We have supplied the necessary testing required to date by the EPA and will be submitting additional data early in 2009 in accordance with the terms our consent order," said Durbin.

In the meantime, Firemaster 550 went into wide use and is still considered safe by EPA standards.

"Based upon test data submitted thus far, EPA has concluded that this new chemical component is not expected to be persistent in the environment or accumulate in living organisms," Kemery wrote in an e- mail.

But Linda Birnbaum of EPA's National Center for Environmental Assessment , which does not regulate chemicals, echoed concerns expressed by other scientists that the tests done so far have not adequately addressed the risks of swapping out a controversial product for another, lesser-known one.

"We have no information, and that's a concern. The industry says the tests that they've done say these chemicals are not as persistent or bioaccumulative as the PBDEs, but I haven't seen any of those studies," said Birnbaum.

"Finding them in house dust means that for us as people, there's an opportunity to come into contact with it every day. We're getting it in our hands and into our mouths. If it's in sediment, fish have the opportunity to get it into their bodies, and if the fish are eaten by bigger fish and it's persistent, you have an opportunity for it to spread beyond where it's located."