01/12/2013 - Pall Eliminates All "Dioxane" (from its 2008-2012 10-K reporting)

For the fifth time in five years, Pall Corporation has failed to include the word "dioxane" in its 10-K SEC reporting.

It's much easier to remove the word dioxane from a 10-K than it is to remove the compound dioxane from contaminated groundwater.

This omission is significant because 1,4-dioxane is an "emerging contaminant" and the EPA has determined that it is more risky that previously thought... [link]... and because Pall reported a dioxane level of 102,983 ppb in June 2012 at one of its monitoring wells at its Pall/Gelman Groundwater Contamination Site, the highest ever reading at the site since Pall acquired Gelman Sciences in 1997 and 1200 times the Michigan's 85 ppb dioxane cleanup standard.

(Michigan, surrounded by 20% of the world's fresh surface water, has the country's loosest dioxane cleanup standards, 85 ppb, (or 2800 ppb if no water intake is assumed to be impacted)... thanks to actions by its legislature and governor in 1995. On the other hand, New Hampshire for example, where they apparently value water more, has had a dioxane standard of 3 ppb, which may be revised even lower with the new EPA ruling.)

The August 2010 EPA 1,4-dioxane guidelines should have brought the Michigan's dioxane residential groundwater cleanup standard down from 85 ppb to about 3.5 ppb... even under Michigan's looser criteria of 1 in 100,000 cancer risk level for residential groundwater contamination.

But while the State of Michigan had a deadline of December 2012 to adjust its dioxane standard to comply with the EPA's new risk assessment, it decided instead to postpone that adjustment until December 2013. That should be long enough for the business-first special interests controlling Gov. Synder's DEQ to get looser "site-based criteria" in place for cleanup sites like the Pall/Gelman site so they don't have to meet the new stricter cleanup standards.

(Michiganganders should learn about Michigan DEQ's semi-secret Collaborative Stakeholders Initiative that convened in 2012 to propose significant revisions to Michigan's environmental regulations, some of which call for looser, site-based criteria. Check out the CSI Stakeholders List and try to find more than one representing the general public or environmental groups.)