Residents, organized as a group called the Behr VOC Area Leaders (BVOCAL), have released the following documentary on YouTube called “This our Neighborhood”:
The documentary details the history of the TCE contamination from the Behr Dayton Thermal Plant in the the McCook Field neighborhood in Dayton, OH.
In today’s news, residents are asking EPA for new widespread testing of indoor air in the neighborhood to rule out risks of exposure by vapor intrusion. So far, EPA has not agreed to the testing. In what appears to be yet another dubious, knee-jerk, party-line denial from federal agencies, Stacey Coburn, the U.S. EPA’s project manager for the site, has stated that “she doesn’t believe anyone’s health is at risk from the plume” despite reports of nearby groundwater contamination levels exceeding 900ppb of TCE and previous confirmation that dangerous levels of TCE have already poisoned indoor air in certain homes.
Meantime, a lawsuit has been filed on behalf of the contaminated community who apparently disagree with EPA’s empty reassurances.
MA Members- From LagoonVet: I’m looking for former Marines living in Massachusetts who are affected by the contaminated water at Lejeune. I was stationed aboard Lejeune from 85 to 89. I lived in Tarawa Terrace base housing from 1985 to 1986. I remember several families from Mass. that lived in the same area I lived in, so I know you’re out there. We need to get together to pressure our Congressional delegates to act on our behalf. Together we stand and they know it. If there are 2,180 former Marines registered from Massachusetts then we need to form it up and sound off. Let’s begin the contact process and start communication by posting on the discussion board first then we can take it from there. We need to do this now. Please see my thread on TFTPTF http://tftptf.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=422 or send me an email through the website. -LagoonVet
IA Members- From Terri & Jon: We are looking for any Marines or their families that live in Iowa. Please contact one of the following individuals: Terri Huntley at tllhuntley@yahoo.com or Jon Tory at faba2th@msn.com. Please see our thread on the TFTPTF bulletin board at http://tftptf.com/v-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=421 -Terri & Jon
As reported in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:
The Rochester Board of Education has scheduled a special session to question state health and environmental officials about a factory-turned-schoolhouse whose owner has asked that it be declared a brownfield.
Board President Malik Evans stressed that the purpose of the meeting, slated for July 14 at 6 p.m. at the board’s downtown headquarters, is to learn more about the toxins at the site and not to take action on the Rochester School District’s future use of the building.
The district last year signed a 15-year lease on the building at 690 St. Paul St. [map], a former Bausch & Lomb factory, where it temporarily housed School 33 this school year and plans to have School 14 and the new Dr. Walter Cooper Academy share space for the next few years.
Evans said the board was unaware of any contamination concerns when it authorized the lease, noting that the site hosted a charter school between 2000 and 2005.
[...]
Word of the meeting comes two weeks after the board rejected by a vote of 5-to-2 a motion that sought to pull students out of the space immediately and stop the two schools from moving in this fall.
[...]
Environmental tests of the site conducted last summer revealed traces of trichloroethene [a/k/a Trichloroethylene] in the air, soil and groundwater.
Nearly five years after toxic chemicals were found moving toward a middle school, the company causing the contamination has a plan to clean it up.
Wayne Metal Protection, 1511 Wabash Ave. [see map], reported polluting the soil and groundwater to Indiana’s voluntary cleanup program in the fall of 2004, but consistently missed state deadlines for investigating the extent of the contamination and forming a cleanup plan. The metal-plating company sits a few hundred feet away – and uphill – from Memorial Park Middle School, and the plume of contamination extends toward the school.
[...]
Decades of metal coating at the site have left the soil and groundwater contaminated with chlorinated solvents, which move easily in groundwater and then evaporate as a gas up through the soil.
The chemicals Wayne Metal Protection found in the soil and groundwater – tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene – have been linked to numerous health problems including spontaneous abortions, menstrual disorders, altered sperm structure and reduced fertility, miscarriages and developmental problems. They have also been connected to kidney and liver problems, can affect the nervous and immune systems and have been linked to kidney, liver and cervical cancer, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
In addition, the company later reported it had found cyanide, arsenic, lead and chromium at the site, as well as vinyl chloride, which is so dangerous the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says there is no safe level of exposure.
Though the firm has submitted a plan, it will still need technical review by IDEM and a public comment period, a process that could take several more months.
For over a year now, McDowell County’s Omar McCourry has been digging into the history of Old Fort industry and of environmental protection in the community.
Spurred by the tragic death of his brother, Curtis, to brain cancer in 2004, he learned that his brother’s illness was not unique in Old Fort, despite the condition’s relative rarity among the greater population.
Word of mouth led him to suspect that an alarming number of folks in Old Fort had succumbed to the same illness. He has been lobbying public health officials to investigate ever since.
[...]
In 1989, more than 100 barrels of industrial waste were located buried on the site of the former Old Fort Finishing. These were excavated and found to contain dozens of chemicals as well as metals including lead, mercury, arsenic. EPA documents McCourry obtained said that 70 of the barrels had been crushed or decayed when they were unearthed.
The article notes that residential well water samples have detected TCE and PCE at levels exceeding federal safety thresholds for at least 20 years. The article fails to mention that scientists and health agencies worldwide have long-since established that TCE and PCE are neurotoxic and cause cancer.
Not only do local health officials appear typically disinterested, but a local Senator has decided to participate in what feels like an ongoing, nationwide charade:
As McCourry had been told when he brought his findings to the attention of state authorities, in any given population group, if they live long enough, a great number of them would be diagnosed with cancer. It is very difficult, they said, to identify a “cluster” of cancer cases that might indicate a pattern, or implicate an environmental toxin.
Senator Joe Sam Queen echoed that theme in his comments to The McDowell News.
“Cancer is a condition that touches every family eventually,” he said. “We are all interested in a situation that may involve or jeopardize the health of children.
Translation: People die, suck it up.
The Senator’s comment is one that we hear frequently, and it remains a transparent excuse for inaction. The Senator and local/state health officials should give this matter the attention it deserves rather than idly hiding behind their stuff happens party line.
During the last 20 years, Tallevast residents say dozens of their neighbors have died prematurely. Others are still fighting cancer and beryllium-related health issues.
But a draft Florida Department of Health report on the community blighted by more than 200 acres of polluted ground water found just four cases of cancer.
The report could hardly be more different from a survey by residents that showed about 90 cases of cancer or beryllium-related diseases in the mainly black community.
DOH officials who met with the neighborhood group FOCUS on Monday agreed that their numbers, based on a state database and figures from a local hospital, were wildly off the mark. They also admitted they had studied the wrong ZIP code.
Although Tallevast has a post office, most Tallevast residents live in a Sarasota ZIP code.
“That’s one of the problems of dealing with a statewide database,” said Randy Merchant, a DOH administrator. “It’s hard to get a handle on what is happening in so small an area.”
The results left community leaders upset that state officials had not worked more closely with them to ensure errors like this did not happen.
“We’re angry,” said Wanda Washington, vice president of FOCUS. “We’re just not sure what road to take. No one ever came into the community to do a study. If you are doing it from behind a desk, you’re going to miss a lot.”
FOCUS’ figures on incidences of cancer came from a door-to-door survey quizzing families about their medical histories.
The community of about 80 homes sits above more than 200 acres of polluted ground water left behind by the former American Beryllium Co., which built parts for nuclear warheads for the federal government for nearly 40 years.
State officials said they will likely get an epidemiologist to conduct a similar door-to-door survey.
The cost would be about $125,000, they said.
State Rep. Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, said if the DOH cannot fund it he will look for other funding sources.
“I’ve committed myself to help see that that happens so that the question can be answered and a more accurate picture developed,” Galvano said.
Residents in Tallevast have asked Lockheed Martin, the company responsible for the cleanup of the site, to pay for them to move. They have also filed several lawsuits against Lockheed and other companies that operated at the site seeking damages for health issues and falling property values.
Lockheed became the owner of the Tallevast site after the company acquired the former Loral company in 1996. It shut down the plant and sold the property, but not before discovering soil and ground-water pollution on and around the site.
In 2000, Lockheed notified county and state officials of the pollution, which included trichloroethylene, or TCE, a compound linked to liver and kidney cancer and other ailments.
Residents, who were not informed for almost four more years, continued to use well water. Their homes were switched to the county drinking water system in 2004.
FOCUS leaders said they would welcome state officials’ repeating their survey.
“We think the state will be better at it,” Washington said. “You need to put your feet on the ground and come out here and collect that information.”
Drinking water supplies for tens of thousands of people near three active Superfund sites in the Bountiful and Woods Cross areas have been at risk or even polluted because of groundwater contamination.
The pollution is so bad that the federal government decided to join state regulators in directing long-term cleanup efforts of those sites.
Business owners who bought property in the affected areas, but were unaware that sources of contamination within the Superfund sites were beneath them, are expected to pay for removal of tainted soil and old polluting underground tanks that were put in long before they came along. Federal funds for cleanup are available for Superfund sites if they are active on the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List, but some property owners still pay.
Utah Division of Drinking Water director Ken Bousfield said last week that water suppliers in Bountiful and Woods Cross are, based on the most recent tests, providing clean drinking water. Bousfield also is aware of the plumes of contaminated groundwater in those areas and how test results can change.
“That’s why you monitor,” he said.
The EPA lists at least 14 active Superfund sites in Utah that are among the worst hazardous waste sites in the country. Two sites in the Woods Cross and Bountiful areas are active due to three plumes of groundwater polluted by chemicals used in the past by dry cleaners, automotive garages and other industry.
A third Superfund project on the EPA’s active National Priorities List is called the Intermountain Waste Oil Refinery site, located in Bountiful in the area of 995 South and 500 West. That site, listed in 2000 as a federal priority, has been deemed by the EPA as “under control” in terms of risk for human exposure to the chemical pollutants.
At one time, however, the Utah Department of Environmental Quality and EPA were looking into whether those who rely on the so-called East Shore aquifer for drinking water — about 68,000 people — were “potentially affected” by a release of dichloroethylene into the aquifer.
Woods Cross public works director Scott Anderson follows state and federal testing regulations, which call for sampling of two wells every three years. He said municipal drinking water in his city is safe, serving about 7,400 people.
“Safe as anywhere else in the country,” Anderson said. “I think it’s very safe.”
Still, Woods Cross shut down one of its four drinking water sources, which supplied half the city, due to contamination by tetrachloroethylene, which the EPA said consistently was above the Cancer Risk Screening Concentration. Karla Scott can see the well from her home, where someone representing Woods Cross showed up about five years ago asking to test her water.
“He said it was OK,” Scott said. “You just go on with your life and don’t worry about it.”
If she wanted to, Scott could take a water sample for testing to the Utah State Health Lab, which sometimes takes special individual cases on, or to the private Chemtech-Ford Laboratories in Murray. The state lab does rigorous testing for water utilities throughout Utah.
Anderson said a test in 2004 showed that one of the three remaining active wells in Woods Cross turned up traces of trichloroethylene (TCE), but not at a level unacceptable by federal standards.
Bousfield said that in a few past isolated cases elsewhere in Utah, contamination has been so bad in drinking water supplies that people could actually smell chemicals in the water. When that happens, he added, there is a potential for an immediate health risk.
“It’s such a rare occurrence,” he said, unable to come up with a specific example over the phone. “I’m sure they do exist.”
5th South Plume
One of two large plumes of polluted groundwater in the Bountiful and Woods Cross areas, defining one Superfund site, is bad enough that seven of 26 domestic wells in the affected area are believed to have been contaminated by chemicals at concentrations that exceed acceptable federal levels. The potentially cancer-causing chemicals connected to that site are perchloroethylene (PCE) and TCE.
The EPA calls those two plumes the Bountiful/Woods Cross 5th South PCE Superfund Site, a place the EPA has assessed as “Human Exposure Not Under Control.” Mario Robles, the EPA’s project manager over the 5th South site, federally listed as a priority in 2001, said last week that cleanup of those plumes migrating under about 450 acres could take about 15 years.
“Really, nobody knows — it could be more, it could be less,” Robles said on the phone regarding a remediation time line.
So far, the plume contaminated with PCE has made its way into two residential drinking water wells, with one homeowner accepting the EPA’s offer of being hooked up to municipal water without charge. The other homeowner, Robles said, is opting to rely on filters for clean drinking water, preferring its taste over city supplies.
“The issue is if they change it often enough,” Robles said about the filter. “We explained the risks to them.”
The remaining five of the seven affected domestic wells are used primarily for irrigation, and Robles said there is not a risk of human exposure to the polluted groundwater around those wells. State regulators don’t keep track of water quality in private wells.
The two plumes, located roughly in the area of 500 South and 800 West in Bountiful, are slowly moving west, and the area of impact could spread, increasing the potential for future exposure from ingesting contaminated groundwater or by inhaling vapors as people use the groundwater for irrigation, according to the EPA.
Robles said that as soon as next month the EPA will decide whether soil near the Bountiful Family Cleaners, in operation since the 1940s but under different ownership, is contaminated enough with PCE to warrant removal and replacing. If that happens, the current owners of the cleaning business may have to cover some of those costs. PCE has been a preferred chemical used by dry cleaners for decades, dating from long before more strict disposal standards for PCE were put in place.
Ronald Bangerter bought the business in the 1960s and now owns it with his eight sons. One son, Bryce, said he hopes Bountiful Family Cleaners won’t have to pay any more than the $100,000-plus it already has spent during the past six years on legal fees and to look for pollution under the property.
“Sleepless nights, gut-wrenching, worried, what’s going to happen to the business,” is how Bryce Bangerter describes those six years. “We’ve run a clean ship since the ’60s.”
Prior to Bangerter’s family owning the business, waste went into a septic tank that drained into a field. But it’s unknown, Bangerter said, if the tank is still underground.
Until cleanup of the two 5th South plumes begins, the EPA is checking eight monitoring wells around the 400-acre PCE plume and 13 monitoring wells around the 50-acre TCE plume to watch how and where they move. The EPA believes the TCE plume has not impacted any wells.
The EPA’s plans for cleanup of the two plumes includes drawing the groundwater out, cleaning it and putting it back into the ground. Another method being considered involves adding nutrients into the polluted groundwater to speed up a natural degradation process.
Five Points Plume
A second Superfund site in the area, which is known by the EPA as the Five Points PCE plume, is a third plume of contaminated groundwater. It is located in the area of approximately 1500 South and State Highway 106, and received its active Superfund priority listing just last year.
The EPA’s on-scene coordinator, Duc Nguyen, said Your Valet Dry Cleaners owner Jim Patterson paid just under $100,000 last year to remove 43 cubic yards of contaminated soil and an old 1,000-gallon underground tank that Patterson said was leaking “bad gasoline.” The irony is not lost on Patterson that he had to pay for removal of a contamination source that wasn’t even linked to the dry cleaning industry.
“We pretty much feel confident that we removed the source of contamination,” Nguyen said.
Excavation stopped, however, partly because of so many underground utility lines and the area’s proximity to busy streets. And Woods Cross shut down one of its four drinking water wells because of consistently high amounts of potentially cancer-causing chemicals showing up in tests. The EPA said that migration of the plume is likely to increase contamination in wells over time.
Nguyen added that the EPA does not yet know the size of the Five Points plume west of Patterson’s business, located just up the hill from Karla Scott’s home of 40 years. Although there is one old monitoring well a block away, and the EPA will be installing new monitoring wells in the coming year, at this point it’s unknown what the impacts are from that plume, which the EPA said contains PCE.
Patterson recalled two other dry cleaners near the old Five Points Mall that possibly could be held accountable for the Five Points plume, but he said they are no longer in business. Patterson bought his Bountiful location in 1963. The money he spent on testing and clean-up is not covered by insurance, although the expenses do qualify as a tax write-off.
“You don’t get much of a sympathetic ear, because you own the land, and who owns the land pays,” Patterson said. “If I could go back on who had the tank, I might seek recovery from them.”
Even though the Five Points plume got its official EPA priority listing last year, Patterson has been dealing with state and federal officials for about nine years, drilling and testing to see where and what type of contamination existed. It is all a result of a drinking water test years ago that found unacceptable levels of PCE present.
Your Valet now says on its Web site it is the first dry cleaner in Utah to offer a new process called GreenEarth Cleaning, which instead of PCE uses a silicone-based cleaning solution developed by General Electric in the 1990s. It is a modified liquid silicone similar to what’s found in cosmetics, shaving creams and deodorants that “will not pollute our water, soil or air.”
Patterson said only one of his six locations still needs converting to GreenEarth, at a cost of about $15,000. There’s no law that says he has to make the conversion, but it’s something he said he’s doing in good conscience.
“There’s not a lot more that I can do, short of tearing up the intersection and knocking the building down,” he said. “It’s expensive, and we’ve done what we can do. I hope it’s over.”
The Natural Resources Defense Council and two residents of Dickson, Tennessee have filed a lawsuit against the Dickson County and city governments. They allege that trichloroethylene, TCE, an industrial chemical disposed at the Dickson Landfill that has been linked to neurological and developmental harm and cancer, poses an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment.
Dickson, a town of some 12,000 people is located about 35 miles west of Nashville. [map]
The Dickson County Landfill, 74 acres off Eno Road, sits within 500 to 2,000 feet of approximately 40 homes, most owned by blacks.
This community group is fighting to rid their area of contamination from the Dickson County landfill.
One African American family in particular, the Holts, a family of black landowners, has been especially harmed by the chemical. Many Holt family members are struggling with cancer and other illnesses, and two of its members are plaintiffs in this lawsuit.
The environmental group and Sheila Holt-Orsted and Beatrice Holt allege that TCE pollution has seeped beneath the landfill to underlying groundwater and has spread through a large area of Dickson County.
TCE contamination has rendered water from wells and springs as far as two to three miles from the landfill unfit for human consumption, the plaintiffs claim.
Polluted spring water is flowing directly into the West Piney River, a fishing stream and a major source of drinking water for the Water Authority of Dickson County. Several square miles of Dickson County have been recognized as an ‘imminent threat’ area by the county.
TCE contamination above drinking water limits, and orders of magnitude above U.S. Environmental Protection Agency screening levels for drinking water, has been found in at least one well even beyond that threat area.
In some areas, this TCE contamination may be growing worse, the plaintiffs claim, but the city and county have not done anything to remove the contamination.
“Some two decades after TCE was first detected in nearby drinking water sources, those responsible have not even fully characterized the present extent and likely future spread of the contamination. Defendants have, in effect, surrendered the ground and surface water of Dickson County to the slow spread of an invisible and toxic chemical,” the complainants said in a statement.
The complaint asks the Court to require the defendants to investigate the present extent and future spread of TCE contamination from the landfill in the soil, surface water, and groundwater of Dickson County; to remediate and abate TCE contamination.
Holt-Orsted has undergone six surgeries and chemotherapy for breast cancer. The Holts originally filed lawsuits in 2003 and 2004, naming the city and county of Dickson and the state of Tennessee, and claiming the family was a victim of negligence that resulted in their cancers and other health problems.
Attorneys for the county and state deny the claims in the earlier lawsuits.
The Department of Environmental Protection will hold a public meeting at 7:30 p.m., on Wednesday, March 26, in Collegeville to update residents on efforts to reduce airborne trichloroethylene (TCE) levels in that area of Montgomery County.
The meeting will be held the Perkiomen Valley Middle School East auditorium, 100 Kagey Road.
“Since releasing our January 2007 air monitoring report, our agency has worked closely with Accellent and Superior Tube to develop emission reduction strategies that would effectively reduce TCE emissions by these narrow tube manufacturers,” said DEP Regional Director Joseph A. Feola. “The department has been, and will continue to be, fully engaged in this effort, and will use this opportunity to update the community on the significant emission reductions that have been achieved to date.”
Recent data from the stationary air monitor in Evansburg State Park show levels of airborne TCE are diminishing, with many days registering no measurable levels of TCE in the air. That trend is expected to continue at both the existing and planned monitoring stations given the companies’ voluntary efforts to reduce emissions.
Superior Tube completed reformulation and degreaser removal projects that are expected to reduce TCE emissions by more than 50 percent this year. On Feb. 13, the company announced it is taking steps to eliminate the use of TCE from its manufacturing process completely.
The company is seeking approval from DEP to replace TCE with an alternative approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — n-propyl bromide, or nPB. Unlike TCE, nPB is not considered an air toxic.
Accellent, meanwhile, is operating the first of two carbon absorber units to control TCE emissions from the company’s large degreasers. Accellent had the first unit operating on Oct. 2 and received the second unit on Feb. 8. This second unit is being installed now and should be operational by early March.
While the manufacturer for the carbon absorber equipment guarantees an overall emission reduction of 35 percent, DEP believes this is a very conservative estimate. Emission reductions of 90 percent or greater usually result from this type of installation.
Complete progress reports and other related information have been posted on DEP’s Southeast regional Web page since a public meeting in February 2007. DEP created this web-based resource so area residents and local officials could obtain news and background information about Collegeville-area air monitoring and TCE emission reduction efforts.
The site can be accessed at http://www.depweb.state.pa.us/, keyword: Collegeville.
A recent addition to the Web page, “Additional Monitoring Under EPA Grant,” provides a link to DEP’s December 2007 work plan for additional monitoring efforts. The agency was awarded a $269,000 grant by EPA to expand its air monitoring efforts for TCE and other compounds in the Collegeville area.
This community-wide monitoring project will develop baseline references of airborne TCE concentrations to support exposure estimates. The project will track long-term measurements of air toxics following the already implemented emission reduction strategy in the area.
Residents who have questions or concerns prior to the meeting may contact DEP Community Relations Coordinator Lynda Rebarchak at 484-250-5820, or by email at lrebarchak@state.pa.us.
Advocates and community members gathered Tuesday in front of State Senator Frank Padavan’s Bellerose office to protest his lax legislation concerning environmentally contaminated school sites and to announce a leafleting campaign to educate constituents in Padavan’s district about the issue.
The meeting was hosted by Dave Palmer, a lawyer for New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, which represents community groups dealing with environmentally contaminated school sites. School sites leased by the City do not require the same type of community, political and environmental review processes as schools owned by the City. This loophole allows for schools to be located on contaminated sites posing health threats to children, according to the organization.
“All of that we think places children at risk,” Palmer said.
“Children are most vulnerable to the effects of toxic chemicals.”
In June, the State Assembly passed a bill sponsored by Cathy Nolan (D-Ridgewood) that NYLPI believed strongly addressed the issues surrounding leased school sites. Palmer said community groups also had an assurance from Padavan that he would sponsor an equally strong bill in the Senate, though they say the bill that was past last session did not contain strong enough provisions for community notice, City Council review and environmental review.
Padavan said in a June statement, “Through discussions with
the City and environmental advocates, we have crafted legislation that addresses concerns relative to school leasing in the City. The legislation that we have developed ensures that any proposed leased site for a school undergoes a two-phased environmental review process with adequate time for public review and comment on any site remediation plan impacting students, parents and community.”
Advocacy organizations and community groups plan to begin distributing leaflets Saturday throughout Padavan’s district, which encompasses parts of northeastern Queens, in an effort to get his constituents to pressure him to draft legislation that more closely reflects their concerns about leased schools.
At the meeting Tuesday, Katie Acton, whose daughter attended PS 65 in Ozone Park from 1999 to 2002 spoke about the toxins beneath the school that she believes led her daughter to develop asthma. Acton belongs to PS 65 Parents and Neighborhood Against TCE, which now has a lawsuit against the City. The school is located is a former airplane parts factory.
“Leaving the school, her health has improved and so have her grades,” Acton said. “It is my understanding that the Department of Education knew of the contamination before the families.”
It has also been reported that the site of the Information Technology High School in Long Island City, a former factory, is contaminated.
Recently, the Dayton Daily News (OH) reported the Behr Dayton Thermal Products Plant has been proposed to EPA’s National Priority List (NPL) for clean-up:
Groundwater contamination in the vicinity of the Behr Dayton Thermal Products Plant is severe enough to merit putting it on the National Priority List of the U.S. EPA’s Superfund program, federal officials said.
The list represents the highest level of urgency for cleanups in the nation.
If the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency approves later this year, an effort to cleanup groundwater at the site would rank among five others in Montgomery County on the National Priority List.
There are 22 active Superfund sites in the county where work is being planned or is under way.
Priority sites are considered the worst in the nation in terms of hazard and are eligible for cleanup using Superfund Trust money. The Behr project is still in the investigational stages, which typically can take two years and cost millions, officials said.
So far, the contamination has led to the closure of McGuffey Elementary School, 1032 Webster St., and the installation of air evacuation systems in 100 homes affected by indoor air fumes from the groundwater, which is tainted with the degreaser trichloroethylene — TCE — and other organic chemicals.
It’s unknown when the school will reopen. A handful of homes that have dirt basements still have indoor air contamination slightly above strict exposure levels. In the Superfund program, those responsible for the contamination fund the cleanup.
According to documents obtained by the Dayton Daily News, federal investigators believe four industrial businesses could share responsibility: Gem City Chemicals Inc., Aramark Uniform Services, Chrysler, and Behr Dayton Thermal Products.
Aramark didn’t return a call for comment. Gem City declined comment.
In a follow-up article, the Daily News also reports that a survey of local cancer incidence is planned:
Public Health Dayton & Montgomery County is launching a cancer incidence survey among residents near the Behr Dayton Thermal Products plant, where groundwater pollution has prompted regulatory action to address indoor air quality.
Mark Case, director of environmental health for the agency, said Monday, March 10, that the survey could take up to a year and is being conducted with the Ohio Department of Health.
The survey will examine medical records and compare cancer levels in the neighborhood with overall cancer levels in the county, state and nation, he said. “By comparison, you get a sense whether something is out of line or not,” Case said.
The Ohio Cancer Incidence Surveillance System will be tapped for data, he noted. All diagnosed cancer cases in Ohio are supposed to be reported to the system. The area will include the census tract of the Behr plant and residential neighborhoods where 100 or so indoor air vapor abatement systems have been installed.
A similar survey was performed in 2005 in Kettering neighborhoods near the former Gentile Air Force Station. Residents of the Wiles Creek neighborhood there complained about pollution from the former Defense Electronics Supply Center. The survey found no abnormalities.
Case acknowledged that a cancer survey could have some limitations.
“We don’t know how long the vapors have been in people’s homes,” he said.
The exact chronology of Behr plant pollution is unclear. Former plant owner Chrysler has said it discovered TCE, or trichloroethylene, contamination in 1996, but it wasn’t until Ohio EPA tests in 2006 that hazards to homes were suspected.
Cancer can develop over decades and take the form of many different types of tumors, Case said. In its Ninth Report on Carcinogens, the federal National Toxicology Program determined that TCE is “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen.” The International Agency for Research on Cancer has determined that TCE is “probably carcinogenic to humans,” according to the Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry.
In a related development, a community outreach survey sponsored by the Environmental Sustainability Research Group at the University of Dayton will examine health problems in the area. A public meeting on the survey could occur in April, a spokeswoman said.
Though the meetings announced in this article have since passed (the article was originally dated March 10), this Rochester Democrat & Chronicle article highlights 3 separate site clean-ups that are under way:
Costly taxpayer-financed plans to address toxic-chemical contamination in residential pockets of northeast Rochester and central Brighton will be detailed at separate public meetings this week.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday evening to discuss a $1 million proposal to remove tainted soil and take other steps to address contamination at a now-closed business at Fernwood and Portland avenues in northeast Rochester.
The DEC first learned in 2000 that Preferred Electric Motors had spilled solvents and other potentially harmful materials in the course of its work refurbishing electric motors. Trichloroethene (TCE), tetrachloroethene (PCE) and other solvents are contaminating groundwater near the former business, prompting the state to install ventilation systems in two homes to guard against the build-up of toxic vapors.
The proposed cleanup would remove about 450 cubic yards of contaminated soil and include steps to speed the degradation of solvents in the groundwater. The floor of the building, which is contaminated with cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), would be cleaned and sealed.
The building was purchased three years ago by a Greece carpet company that stores product there, according to the DEC.
On Thursday, another group of state officials will convene a meeting in Brighton to discuss a proposed $3.7 million plan to address a complicated PCE contamination problem underneath a section of Brighton just southeast of the Twelve Corners.
The solvent contamination there first came to light during investigation of a 2003 petroleum spill at a service station at the corner of Brooklawn Drive and Monroe Avenue. Officials first pointed the finger at Carriage Cleaners, at that same intersection, as the source of the PCE, a common dry-cleaning solvent.
Then last year, DEC said they had found high levels of PCE in soil and groundwater near a former Speedy’s Cleaners just across Monroe Avenue from the other two businesses. It also was identified as a likely source of the solvents. Vapor ventilation systems had been installed in at least 11 structures to address petroleum vapors. PCE vapors prompted installation of systems in three residential and one commercial building.
As part of its long-term cleanup plan, the environmental agency now proposes to install systems that would extract both air and groundwater from below the surface for treatment to remove any solvents. About 720 cubic yards of tainted soil also would be excavated.
Both central Brighton and northeast Rochester are served by public water, meaning no one should be drinking the contaminated groundwater. But in recent years, officials have recognized that solvents can evaporate underground and rise through the soil — and can, in some cases, the vapors can accumulate inside homes or businesses above.
Both TCE and PCE may cause cancer or other serious health problems in people exposed to high levels. The affects of low-level exposure are less clear — but the DEC and the state Department of Health have given special attention in recent years to possible intrusion of solvent vapors.
Both cleanup projects would be paid for with money from New York’s Superfund, which finances work at hazardous waste disposal sites when the responsible parties do not step in. The DEC’s written cleanup proposals, provided by the agency Friday, indicated that companies judged responsible for the Rochester and Brighton contamination have declined to pay for the work. The DEC may pursue legal action against them to recover its costs, the proposals said.
Residents of the neighborhood affected by the petroleum and PCE spills in Brighton filed a civil suit in 2004 against the companies that owned the service station and the two dry cleaners, as well as the town of Brighton.
The plaintiff’s lawyer, Alan Knauf, could not be reached for comment late Friday. But a January letter from Knauf in the case file in U.S. District Court said the plaintiffs had reached a settlement agreement with all the defendants except for Speedy’s.
St. Louis Park, Minn., Vapor Intrusion Study Update Meeting March 19
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 will host a public meeting to update residents on findings of the vapor intrusion study being conducted in the vicinity of Highway 7 and Wooddale Avenue. The meeting will be 7 p.m., Wednesday, March 19 at the St. Louis Park Rec Center, 3700 Monterey Drive, St. Louis Park, Minn.
Vapors from volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, have been found in some area ground water and could get into homes and commercial buildings. EPA has screened about 250 St. Louis Park properties since December. A Web site is at http://www.epa.gov/region5/sites/stlouispark/index.htm
Officials from partner agencies are expected at the meeting. Partner agencies include Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Minnesota Department of Public Health, Hennepin County and the city of St. Louis Park.
For more information or special accommodations at the meeting, contact EPA community involvement coordinator Don de Blasio, 800-621-8431, Ext. 64360 (weekdays 9 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.) or deblasio.don@epa.gov.
SOURCE U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5
Late in February, the Palladium-Item (IN) reported:
Springwood Lake [in Richmond, Indiana] will remain closed to area fishermen for at least a year and could be closed well beyond that, Richmond park board members were told Thursday.
The reason is contamination, including cancer-causing heavy metals, found in sediment on the lake’s floor during testing over the past few years. State officials also believe that contaminants continue to seep into the lake from industrial sites past and present above the lake on the city’s northwest side.
Some believe that area may include old industrial dump sites.
State officials told Richmond Mayor Sally Hutton and city park department board members that tests found contaminants including lead, PCBs, cadmium, chromium, cyanide, arsenic and trichloroethylene (a solvent) in the sediment.
[...]
“We do know there is historical contamination (in the lake) and we know there is a need for more investigation,” said IDEM spokeswoman Amy Hartsock. “There has not been a fish consumption advisory issued for the lake at this time, but we do support the city’s decision to close the lake to fishing.”
This is a first for us. We’ve never heard of Trichloroethylene being discovered in sediments below a lake. We’re not saying it doesn’t happen, just that it’s the first we’ve heard this kind of story. It raises a number of questions for us:
What levels of TCE were discovered in the sediment?
If the sediment contains TCE, does that mean the lake water contains TCE?
If the lake water contains TCE, is the lake itself a source of toxic TCE vapors (that is, is TCE evaporating from the lake and contaminating the air?)
And of course, from where did this TCE come?
Note: We recognize there are other toxins involved here and don’t mean to suggest they are unimportant. But as readers know, we have a very narrow focus.
We’ll keep you posted as we learn more. Meantime, you can read the full story here.
Toxic TCE vapors are entering homes in Dayton. Though EPA is on the case, they’ve run into a few complications:
Efforts to make homes safe from contaminated groundwater fumes near the Behr Dayton Thermal Products plant, 1600 Webster St., have run into problems at as many as 10 homes.
And the effort to clean indoor air contamination at a nearby school is ongoing, authorities have said.
TCE fumes have migrated from the soil into the homes, businesses and schools, creating potentially hazardous vapors.
In homes that have dirt basement floors, those floors must be sealed for the air evacuation systems to work properly, said Mark Case, director of environmental health for Public Health Dayton & Montgomery County.
Levels of contamination in the problematic homes have reportedly dropped below 10 ppb. That’s still 25 times the Ohio Department of Health’s exposure limit of .4 ppb.
After finding cause for concern in previous tests, the St. Louis Park (MN) vapor intrusion investigation expands:
Expanding the search for potentially hazardous vapors in homes and businesses in St. Louis Park, the Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that it will add about 50 properties to its study area on both sides of Hwy. 7 near Wooddale Avenue.
[...]
The main chemicals of concern, trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene, have been used for decades as industrial degreasers, metal cleaners and dry-cleaning fluids and seeped into the groundwater under St. Louis Park. Long-term exposure to them at certain levels has been linked to cancer, liver disease and other problems, according to state health officials.
[...]
EPA officials will go door-to-door this Saturday to explain the situation to those living in the expanded study area, and to seek their permission to take air samples. The testing involves drilling a small hole in the basement and inserting a 2-foot probe about the width of a pencil.
The initial study area contained about 270 homes and businesses, and the EPA received permission from owners to test vapors beneath 214 of the buildings. Of that number, 32 homes and eight commercial buildings were found to have enough contamination to justify more testing to check air in different rooms and for longer periods of time.
After several years of exploration, the East Pikeland Planning Commission has just recommended a plan to build an elementary school on land contaminated with VOC’s (including TCE). Last week, the Daily Local News (West Chester, PA) reported the unanimous recommendation was made to the Board of Supervisors. Now, presumably, the Board will consider the issue.
Back in 2006, the Planning Commission summarized the history of the site and outlined their major environmental concerns regarding school-building there:
[Attorney Christopher] Roe explained that across Coldstream Road from the proposed school site the Henry Company site has long been the subject of environmental investigation and clean-up under the direction of the United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA). Ciba-Geigy, a chemical company, operated there in the 1950s and early 1960s. USEPA has identified lagoons that were used for disposal in that area and are the likely source of solvent contamination in the groundwater. The lagoons were excavated in 1984, but the monitoring and clean-up of groundwater continues.
In the 1980s groundwater monitoring wells were installed on nearby properties to determine how far contaminants had spread. These off site wells included four that were installed on what is now the Kimberton Elementary School property. Two of the wells on the north northeast side of the Kimberton School property have never shown the presence of any solvent contamination. A third well, on the east side of the property along Rt.113, has shown low levels, at or below clean-up standards. The fourth well, monitoring well MW-17 –along the southwest edge of the property – has consistently shown elevated levels of solvent contamination.
Phoenixville Area School District (PASD) will not use groundwater from the property for any purpose. Despite this, PASD and its advisors met with and are working with USEPA and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) to insure that the presence of the contaminants in the groundwater below part of the property will not pose unacceptable risks to employees or students.
PASD is actively engaged in two steps toward this goal. First, PASD has directed that the designers of the school building follow and implement USEPA guidelines for ensuring that school buildings are protected from subsurface vapors.
Second, PASD has hired environmental specialists to install additional groundwater monitoring wells to better define the areas of the property under which contaminated groundwater may exist, including the concentrations and water elevations.
Given the history of the use of the property, another issue that PASD is having its environmental advisers fully evaluate and address is the appropriate handling of the construction debris and other fill materials, including a small area reportedly used as a town disposal area in the 1960s or earlier. PASD’s consultant will submit a plan for the handling of the fill materials that will be reviewed and approved by PADEP before actual construction work begins.
In 1981 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were detected in monitoring wells. As a result, a series of initial clean-up actions took place including removal of drums, excavation of the lagoons, and treatment of residential wells. In 1992 a public water system was built providing water to residences and businesses around the site. Approximately 500 people live within a one-mile radius of the site. A small stream that crosses through the site is the discharge point for local groundwater. Less than one-mile from the site is French Creek, a public recreation and fishing area.
[...]
Threats and Contaminants
During routine water quality testing in 1981, contamination in a well on the site was detected. The lagoons were identified as a source of contamination at the site. The groundwater is contaminated with volatile organic compounds (VOCs), including trichloroethene [aka trichloroethylene], dichloroethene, and vinyl chloride. A tributary to French Creek was also contaminated with VOCs.
[...]
Cleanup Progress
In the past ten years, over 3,000 pounds of VOCs, mainly TCE, have been removed by the groundwater treatment system. The groundwater and surface water are regularly monitored and this information is reported to EPA. EPA completed a five-year review of the site on September 30, 2004 and found that the remedy is protective of human health and the environment. The next five-year review will be due by September 2009.
Though online sources do not appear to reveal the levels of contamination at the adjacent contaminated property or under the proposed school, plans to build a geothermal system into the proposed school reportedly have been scrapped because of the vapor intrusion risk associated with drilling into the soil.
We can’t help but wonder: If the soil is so contaminated that drilling into it may exacerbate vapor intrusion, do you really want to put a school there?
Apparently we’re not the only ones concerned. In an opinion letter published this past Sunday in the Daily Local News, West Chester resident Bruce Molholt Ph.D., an independent environmental consultant and a part-time professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Environmental Studies whose research interests include “environmental factors which exacerbate cancer incidence among children,” writes:
As a toxicologist who has investigated many schools built upon ground containing chlorinated solvents, this situation looks potentially dangerous to future schoolchildren whether or not a geothermal system is put in place.
The problem is that chlorinated solvents underground are degraded by soil bacteria to vinyl chloride, a carcinogenic gas. This carcinogenic gas migrates upwards, much like radon, and may accumulate in buildings on top of contaminated soil.
In one such school built in 1965 atop a trichloroethylene (TCE) dump in Marion, Ohio, I found that the leukemia rate in schoolchildren was three times that expected. Upon my recommendation, the local school board finally moved the school to another location. Obviously this unwise location caused both inestimable human trauma and great expense to the school district.
Bruce Molholt
West Chester
If any readers know the actual levels of contamination found at or near the site, please contact us via the link above or send an email to tceblog [at] gmail.com. Meantime, we’ll try to keep you posted as we learn more.
We posted this news weeks ago and wanted to tell you more:
According to the press release announcing its formation, the New York State Vapor Intrusion Alliance (NYVIA) was recently formed by citizens representing Ithaca, Victor, Endicott, Hopewell Junction, Plainview, Hillcrest, Middleport and Ft. Edward. Each of these communities has been forced to deal with ongoing TCE pollution and the impact of vapor intrusion. Founding members of the Alliance include (links have been provided below where available):
Assist impacted residents, communities and schools across New York State in addressing toxic chemical exposure from vapor intrusion.
Explore the impact of vapor intrusion on health and property, identify commonalities, and present our findings as a means to educate the public, media, and policy-makers.
Collaborate with local and state officials to adopt protective remediation standards, policies, procedures and technologies to prevent or mitigate vapor intrusion that are based on 21st century knowledge and science.
In support of this mission, the Alliance has already inserted itself into state politics and is lobbying for legislation designed to better protect the public from migrating toxins and vapor intrusion.
A document from the NYS Department of Health in 2003 listed the range of potential criteria for long term exposure of trichloroethylene (TCE) in indoor air from 0.2 to 4 micrograms per cubic meter (mcg/m3)of air and then sets 5 mcg/m3 as the indoor air guideline. In 2005, the NYS DOH adopted a matrix for evaluating residential indoor air that lists values for mitigation of TCE vapors ranging from 0.25 to 5.0 mcg/m3 depending on subslab concentrations. As a response to public outcry about the matrix, the NYS DOH convened an expert panel in August of 2005 to comment on the use of this matrix. NYS DOH rejected the panel’s recommendation that the standard be set between 0.1 and 1 mcg/m3 of indoor air. In 2006, NYS Senator Thomas Libous wrote to the NYS DOH requesting that the NYS standard be set between 0.016 and 0.02 mcg/m3 of air. The NYS DOH has been unresponsive to requests to lower NYS indoor air standards.
[...]
The community action groups in this Alliance have found that the NYS Indoor Air guidelines in the matrix are not applied uniformly in pollution cases. The screening levels appear to be different in different communities and the action levels vary significantly. In Hillcrest (Town of Fenton) NY, mitigation of TCE vapors was done down to 0.14 mcg/m3 whereas in Endicott NY a standard of 5 mcg/m3 was applied.
The NewYork-Vapor Intrusion Alliance strongly supports the introduction of legislation to adopt trichloroethylene indoor air standards to be set at the detection level using the most accurate measurement devices available. NY-VIA also strongly supports that the standards be applied uniformly across New York State.
The New York State Vapor Intrusion Alliance is working towards important goals. Their voice and influence have become necessary to fill a critical gap left by legislators and regulators who, unduly influenced by corporate and political pressures, have been unable or unwilling to adequately protect the public from migrating toxins and vapor intrusion.
The TCE Blog fully supports NYVIA’s mission and its efforts. Further, we believe other states can and should learn from their example. Every state should establish a similar Vapor Intrusion Alliance.
If anybody from Connecticut wants to help us launch the CTVIA, please contact us.
A story posted on the TimesLedger website describes NY State Assemblywoman Catherine Nolan’s appeal to the state to better inform local communities about potentially toxic neighborhood sites. Her concern appears to stem from recent discovery of contamination found to be migrating from under the Swingline Stapler building in Queens.
It reminds us that we have yet to post the original news of the migration, which broke in December:
State Department of Environmental Conservation officials are conducting tests at eight to 12 buildings within a one-block radius of the former stapler factory, which closed in 1999 and housed the Museum of Modern Art while its Manhattan location was being renovated from 2002 to 2004.
The groundwater and soil beneath the building is tainted with the common industrial pollutant and carcinogen trichloroethylene, known as TCE, according to DEC regional citizen-participation specialist Arturo Garcia-Costas.
In October, the DEC found that the degreasing solvent – which has also been linked to nerve damage and birth defects – may have spread, so a new round of tests began immediately.
[...]
ACCO, the company that operated the Swingline factory from 1952 to 1997, entered into the state’s voluntary cleanup program in October 2000 after an unlined pit used to dump chemical waste was discovered during federal closing procedures.
In 2004 the DEC investigated the actual footprint of the factory, but not until this year did it complete tests in the areas around Swingline.
Read the full story from December here. We’ll try to keep you posted as we learn more.
[EPA w]orkers are testing the air inside 40 homes and businesses in St. Louis Park after chemical vapors were discovered in the soil under their basements, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday.
Those properties were among more than 200 homes and businesses that were checked for potential risk from underground solvent contamination.
[...]
Each of the 40 properties will be visited by a mobile lab, [EPA's "on-scene coordinator, Sonia] Vega said. Technicians are going room to room in the homes, using special hoses to pump air into the lab to see whether the vapors are present in high concentrations. They will also leave 24-hour sampling canisters in each building to test the air in the basement and first-floor levels.
The main chemicals of concern, trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene, have been used for decades as industrial degreasers, metal cleaners and dry-cleaning fluids. Long-term exposure to them at certain levels has been linked to cancer, liver problems and other adverse health effects, according to state health officials.
[...]
The properties being tested are on both sides of Hwy. 7 near Wooddale Avenue. By last week, workers had pulled air samples from beneath the basement floors of 184 residences and 29 commercial or industrial buildings.
Vega said the vapors measured beneath the 32 homes and eight commercial buildings ranged from slightly above health guidelines to more than twice what is considered safe. The buildings with the higher vapor concentrations in their soils were clustered, Vega said, but she could not provide more details until the test results are completed and mapped.
Read the full story here. In a previous article, the Star Tribune posted a map of the evaluation area:
See below for the Star Tribune’s previous coverage of this story:
