ADA cites commitment to best management practices in letter to EPA

The ADA is actively promoting best management practices with American dentists that include use of amalgam separators, ADA officials told the Environmental Protection Agency in a letter about their three-party memorandum of understanding.

The Association entered an agreement with the EPA Dec. 29, 2008, to promote its best management practices and the use of amalgam separators for amalgam waste (ADA News Today Jan. 12, 2009, ADA, EPA agreement promotes amalgam best management practices).

“We recently learned of an effort by a group called Zero Mercury Workgroup to ask that EPA terminate the memorandum of understanding among EPA, the American Dental Association and the National Association of Clean Water Agencies,” said the letter signed by Dr. John S. Findley, ADA president, and Dr. Kathleen O’Loughlin, ADA executive director, and addressed to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

A separator manufacturer, SolmeteX, also asked the EPA to end the voluntary program and “promulgate mandatory dental wastewater requirements as categorical standards鈥nder section 307 of the Clean Water Act.” The SolmeteX letter to the EPA says, “The dental community is ‘low hanging fruit,’ an opportunity for a quick success with a proven track record for this administration and the environment.”

The Association “remains committed to the goals of the MOU,” said ADA’s letter.

“The MOU represents the best efforts of EPA and the regulated community to take action immediately that is above and beyond those steps required by law. The ADA is actively promoting its BMPs, including the use of amalgam separators, with American dentists.

“That any organization, whose purpose is purportedly to limit mercury pollution, would oppose such voluntary efforts is a step backwards, away from responsible action to promote the environment.”