Science-For-Hire

PRODUCT DEFENSE FIRMS: Boeing’s Groundwater “EXPERT PANEL”

In his book, The Triumph of Doubt, author David Michaels writes about product defense firms.

“Much of [product defense firms] work involved the production of scientific materials that purport to show that a product a corporation makes, or uses, or even discharges as air or water pollution, is just not very dangerous…these operations have toxicologists, epidemiologists, biostatisticians… deflating the benefits of proposed regulation.”

Boeing’s interactions with the Los Angeles Water Board reads like a chapter out of a product defense firm handbook. In 2019, after the Woolsey Fire, Boeing provided the salaries for five “independent” scientists for the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board after the Woolsey Fire.

It was not surprising that the Expert Panel found no links between Boeing’s contamination that polluted the Los Angeles River and the Arroyo Simi and the SSFL. Instead, they blamed the record-high levels of radioactive and toxic chemical contamination on burned telephones and asphalt. Boeing’s fines, resulting from “exceedances” that included measurements of lead in rain runoff 14x above the legal limit, were reduced from $154,250 to just $28,000