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The Northwest Herald (IL) has created an outstanding multimedia presentation that tells the story of the McCullom Lake cancer lawsuits. And boy, what a way to tell the story!
They include video interviews with plaintiffs and with attorneys for both sides, map of the contamination area, documents associated with the lawsuit (including an important expert report from Redpath’s Dr. Sidney Finkelstein that we will highlight at another time) and more.
For those interested in McCullom Lake, the causal connection between brain cancers and TCE/vinyl chloride/chlorinated solvent exposure, and legal actions for personal injuries caused by chlorinated ethylenes, we highly recommend you check it out.
Warning: The title of the presentation is “Coincidence or Cluster?” We believe this is a poorly-chosen title and it does not properly reflect the main issue in these suits. The main issue, as we understand it, is whether or not the defendants’ chemicals caused the individual plaintiffs’ cancers. Whether McCullom Lake’s cancers can be considered a cancer cluster is a red herring. So please ignore the overly simplistic title, but do check out the presentation.
With TCE testing continuing in Union and Endicott, the Press & Sun-Bulletin (NY) reports:
Analysis of the samples suggests no more work is necessary in “Area Seven,” with approximate borders of Country Club Road to the south, Twist Run Road to the north, Nanticoke Avenue to the west and Robinson Hill Road to the east.
Lab technicians collected samples on public rights of way near parcels that raised suspicion because of unknown dumping or the possibility of dumping in years past. They included cemetery property owned by St. Mary’s Orthodox Catholic Church at the corner of Taft Avenue and Newell Road, and a dump on Twist Run Road identified as a “sanitary refuse disposal area” in a DEC summary of the sites.
The DEC has divided the Town of Union and the village into seven areas to map out pollution from trichloroethylene (TCE), an industrial solvent once used extensively in circuit board assembly and other industries.
The state will continue work in evaluating five of the areas, including a neighborhood around Badger Avenue and June Street where high concentrations of TCE have been found underground.
Tests showed no evidence of pollution requiring further study in “Area Three” — west of Oak Hill Avenue, south of Pine Street, north of Franklin Street and east of Nanticoke Avenue, according to the report.
Read the full story here.
Wanted to alert folks to a blog we’ve been reading for a few months which tracks contamination news of all sorts. It’s called Contaminated Nation and is run/edited by Jay Gaines. Jay is a capricorn, his zodiac year is the rooster (would we make this stuff up?), and he has this to say about his background and the blog’s purpose:
As an employee of a large environmental risk information company, I have unique insight into contamination issues in the U.S. The purpose of this blog is to share what I see and learn about the effects of contamination in our nation and our neighborhoods.
Be sure to check out all the latest contamination news at Contaminated Nation.
In 1997, the Rialto-Colton Groundwater Basin, a source of drinking water to tens of thousands of San Bernardino County residents, was found to be contaminated by TCE and perchlorate. According to EPA, “the contamination has forced the closure of numerous public drinking water supply wells and caused hardships for Rialto, Colton and neighboring areas dependent on the basin for their drinking water.” Ever since, the City of Rialto has attempted to treat the contaminated wells, remediate the perchlorate and TCE, and also recover costs for its efforts from a number of potentially responsible parties (PRP’s).
In a 2005, when EPA granted the affected cities more than $400,000 towards the cost of clean-up, the San Bernardino Sun (CA) explained why this money was “just a drop in the bucket”:
It costs more than $1 million to install perchlorate filters on a well, and about $500,000 a year for maintenance.
…
Fontana Water Co. General Manager Mike McGraw said the city spent about $3 million to set up treatment for two contaminated wells.
…
[Colton] has spent more than $4 million to date treating three wells for perchlorate, Medina said. He wouldn’t rule out a rate increase.
…
Rialto is suing the Department of Defense and 42 of its contractors, as well as fireworks manufacturers, for perchlorate contamination. One defendant, B.F. Goodrich, gave $4 million to the cities and district.
Rialto has spent about $7.6 million on legal fees and cleanup. It is treating two of its wells for perchlorate contamination.
Fast forward to 2008. After spending nearly $20 million trying to “hold dozens of suspected polluters responsible,” Rialto has just fired their city attorney (Bob Owens, who allegedly was quarterbacking Rialto’s strategy for recovering costs from other polluters) and is facing significant uncertainty as it prepares to determine what’s next.
Meanwhile, on the City of Rialto’s website, in addition to tracking the latest clean-up/lawsuit news and developments, the following declaration appears:
The City will continue to provide the citizens of Rialto with clean, safe, and affordable drinking water. It will also pursue parties that are responsible for the perchlorate pollution to pay for the clean up of the Rialto-Colton Groundwater Basin. It will repay Rialto’s ratepayers for the costs incurred in forcing the polluters to clean it up.
Henry Garcia, City Administrator
As always, we’ll try to keep you posted.
The Express Times (Easton, PA) has this report about TCE migrating away from a Hellertown Superfund site:
Contaminated soil at the former Champion Spark Plug factory on Main Street is covered with a cap under a layer of asphalt, but federal officials want to determine if any chemical gases from the property made their way into nearby homes.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to test two residences over the next few months for the presence of trichloroethylene (TCE), one of the chemicals that entered the soil and groundwater at the site between 1930 and 1976.
Read the full story here.
The Pittsburgh Tribune Review reports migrating TCE contamination in Parks Township, Armstrong County, PA:
The state Department of Environmental Protection confirmed that trichloroethylene (TCE) continues to contaminate groundwater and migrate from the site of a former plutonium plant along Route 66 to the Kiski River in Parks.
Although the plutonium plant was razed, with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission granting unrestricted release of the site in August 2004, the groundwater is still contaminated with TCE. The plant site is adjacent to a nuclear dump.
A toxic liquid commonly used as a solvent, TCE was first detected by the owners of the site of the former plutonium plant, Babcock & Wilcox, in 1991.
“The site was decommissioned, and B&W removed contaminated soils, but it did not remove TCE from the groundwater,” said Helen Humphreys, DEP spokeswoman. The company was then required to monitor the groundwater for two years until the end of 2004. Since then, there has been no monitoring, Humphreys said.
“The contamination entering the Kiski does not pose a risk to people or the environment,” she said. “We need to work with the company for a complete cleanup of the site.” There is no cleanup deadline in place.
From Friday’s Midhudsonnews.com:
East Fishkill – The New York Vapor Intrusion Alliance has been formed with members across the state. It was spearheaded by Debra Hall, an East Fishkill resident who has been fighting for clean water and clean air after her house was found to be contaminated.
The group’s primary purpose is public awareness of the problems surrounding vapor intrusion, said Hall.
“We basically want people to recognize vapor intrusion, know that it’s a real health problem, and there needs to be legislation that is going to protect people for it,” she said. “Now that we know that it’s here, who knows how long people have been breathing in vapors with TCE and PCE and all these other chemicals that volatize?”
Hall and members of the group will be meeting with state lawmakers and DEC officials next week to push for legislation that would require landlord notification when dealing with environmental investigations and testing, and a private well testing law.
UPDATE: There’s more on the NYSVIA in this Dec. 29, 2007 Ithaca Journal article:
Broome County, with more than 700 properties affected in Endicott, the Town of Union, Vestal, Binghamton and Hillcrest, is among the largest stakeholders in the TCE regulatory process, said Bruce Oldfield, a Hillcrest resident and Broome Community College professor. He is co-chairing the group, called the New York State Vapor Intrusion Alliance, representing citizens groups from nine areas throughout the state. Debra Hall of Hopewell Junction in Dutchess County, is a co-chair.
TCE has also been detected in parts of the South Hill section of Ithaca.
Coalition members plan to meet with lawmakers in Albany in January, Oldfield said. They are pushing for simple and uniform rules that prohibit trichloroethylene (TCE) in indoor air.
“There seems to be a wide discrepancy in how they (state health and environmental departments) approach these sites,” Oldfield said. “That is troublesome.”
Chris Francescani of ABC News’s tough-sounding Law and Justice Unit reported Thursday on the FUDS clean-up project. FUDS stands for Formerly Used Military Defense Sites:
In 1986, when the Department of Defense established the FUDS program, the Army was charged with going back through all available military records to determine when and where the D.O.D. caused contamination, via unexploded munitions, or chemical contamination through the use of compounds now known to be carcinogens, such as trichloroethylene, known as TCE, which was widely used to degrease fighter jets and missiles during the Cold War.
More than 9,000 sites were identified, according to Addison D. ‘Tad’ Davis, the Army’s deputy assistant secretary for environment, safety and occupational health. He said that at least 2,700 sites around the country have been identified as needing a cleanup…
While much of the article focuses on the impact of unexploded munitions, a portion of it addresses TCE:
Another problem the military faces is detecting chemical contamination. Sites that were tested and rendered safe 20 years ago are being revisited, in light of more advanced scientific information.
[...]
“[I]n the past 10 to 15 years, TCE was found to be a carcinogen, so TCE is now very much a priority,” [Davis] said.
(Yeah, yeah we know. TCE has been a known poison for decades, but this is not the time to quibble with the man’s sense of history. He agrees its remediation is a priority, that’s what matters here.)
How did all this happen? So glad you asked:
“How it happened is very simple,” said Candice [a.k.a. "Candy"] Walters, a spokeswoman for the United States Army Corps of Engineers, which has been tasked by the Department of Defense with surveying and cleaning up the sites.
“Since the American Revolution on forward, the U.S. military has trained it’s troops to fights wars. And part of that training is training with live ammunition,” which, Walters said, included firing ranges, aerial bombing, and even cannon practice.
The military bought, rented or leased thousands of stateside properties over the years, she added.
“At the end of the wars, there wasn’t a need to have the [military training] installations anymore, so they closed them down and either gave them back to the property owner, or back to the state or county.
“They did what was environmentally acceptable at the time, which was, they dug a patch and buried them,” Walters said. “They’d sweep up what they could see on the ground, and collect and dispose of them underground.
“What they tried to do when they gave back the land was to say that, in some cases, there could be unexploded ordnances underground. But much of this was farmland, forests, places where no one ever thought people would ever build a housing project there.”
We have been saying for some time that states must follow in New York’s and New Jersey’s footsteps and re-open old, previously-thought-closed site investigations to account for landscape-changing knowledge (like our evolving understanding of vapor intrusion risk). Nice to see the military at least taking steps in this direction.
Read the full ABC report here. For an interactive map to find the closest FUDS site to your hometown, click here.
The East Valley Tribune (AZ) reports:
Scottsdale officials Tuesday ordered a study into the possibility of taking over water service to about 1,200 city residents from a private water utility after a hazardous chemical pollutant entered the company’s water supply twice in three months.
The City Council voted unanimously to begin an investigation of the city’s options in securing safe water for Scottsdale customers on Arizona American Water Co.’s system. Those options could include buying or condemning the Scottsdale portion of the private utility’s system, or running parallel water lines to connect those customers to Scottsdale’s municipal system, said Ron McCullagh, the councilman who raised the discussion.
“As Scottsdale residents and taxpayers, they deserve the same safe and reliable water delivery service that we give to other residents of this city,” McCullagh said.
We learn from the editor of Random Musings that Mccullagh is a customer of Arizona American Water Company, the private utility in question. After attending the meeting, Random Musings had this to share:
I don’t think this will actually go anywhere; it seemed to be more an exercise in “showing the voters that we’re on top of things” than anything else. The council members seemed to hope that the [study] will say that the problem has been dealt with and no one needs to worry any more.
For East Valley Tribune coverage, see here. For the inside scoop from Random Musings, see here.
According to The Ithaca Journal (NY):
Ambient air samples in some South Hill structures show higher levels of TCE than have ever been found since Emerson began testing ambient air in 2004, according to a letter from Emerson Power Transmission to some South Hill homeowners.
[...]
The state Departments of Health and Environmental Conservation will host a public availability session and information meeting Thursday in Ithaca Town Hall, 215 N. Tioga St. The availability session, 2 to 4 p.m., allows individuals to ask questions one on one. The public meeting will be from 6:30 to 9 p.m.
Read the full story here.
There’s a decades-old plume of TCE and PCE in Chico, CA that migrated nearly two-miles from its source and has contaminated residents’ well water for years:
The Skyway plume was discovered when area residents asked for wells to be tested because they were concerned a nearby tank farm might be leaking petroleum-based contaminants into their groundwater. Instead, unacceptable levels of chlorinated solvents were found and traced back to an operation that manufactured aluminum shower enclosures on Speedway Avenue from 1962 until 1976.
Preliminary tests revealed the contamination extends about two miles from its origin, flowing under Skyway and Cessna avenues and ending along Hegan Avenue near the Chico State University farm. [see map]
Just this week, ABB, the company being “held responsible for clean-up costs,” agreed to pay for 63 residential hook-ups to the water system run by California Water Service Company (a.k.a. Cal Water). Meanwhile, the investigation into the overall size of the plume continues.
Years ago, University of North Carolina (UNC) Hospitals and Department of Chemistry disposed of benzene, chloroform, methylene chloride and trichloroethylene by burying them underground in containers near Horace Williams Airport. Over time the contaminants leaked into the surrounding soil and groundwater. Now, UNC is taking steps to clean things up.
The University first committed to cleaning the area in 2003, when it signed a voluntary agreement with the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
The cleanup is expected to cost about $4.5 million and should be finished by the end of the summer. It will not affect the airport’s operation, said Larry Daw, an environmental specialist for UNC’s Department of Environment, Health and Safety.
[...]
UNC used the site from 1973 to 1979 to dispose of lab chemical waste generated by the campus and what was then N.C. Memorial Hospital. Although it has since been outlawed, burying waste was permissible under state laws at the time.
“It was a common practice in those days to dispose of waste in that manner,” Daw said. “After that time period, there were some new laws coming into effect.”
Read the full story in The Daily Tar Heel (NC).
From the EPA newsroom:
EPA to Hold Public Meeting for Mill’s Gap Groundwater Contamination Site in Skyland, N.C.
Release date: 01/14/2008
Contact Information: Dawn Harris-Young, (404) 562-8421, harris-young.dawn@epa.gov
(Atlanta, Ga. – Jan. 14, 2008) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will hold a public meeting on Thursday, January 31, 2008 regarding current activities at the Mill’s Gap Groundwater Contamination site in Skyland, N.C. EPA, North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR), Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, and Buncombe County Health Center officials will provide information and answer questions about recent sampling related to the site and an enforcement update.
The public meeting will begin at 6:30 p.m. at the Skyland Fire Department, 9 Miller Road, Skyland, N.C. Community members interested in obtaining additional information are encouraged to contact Sherryl A. Carbonaro, EPA Community Involvement Coordinator, at (678) 575-7355.
The site is located off Mills Gap Road, approximately one mile east of Skyland, in Buncombe County, N.C. and consists of approximately nine acres of maintained grounds containing a large, single-story building. In 1952, IRC, Inc. (IRC) bought the land and constructed the building which was used for its electroplating operations. In 1959, IRC sold the property to CTS, Inc (CTS). From 1959 to 1986, CTS operated an electroplating facility at the site. In 1987, Mills Gap Road Associates (MGRA) purchased the site and is the current owner. Environmental sampling has indicated the subsurface beneath the former plant is contaminated with the chemical compound trichloroethylene (a.k.a. trichloroethene or TCE) as well as petroleum products. In 1999 TCE was discovered in nearby springs and one residential drinking water well. This past December, EPA and DENR commenced more extensive sampling that included expanded residential well sampling and vapor intrusion sampling at homes in close proximity to the site.
ATTENTION: A media availability session will be held at the Skyland Fire Department, 9 Miller Road in Skyland, N.C. from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. on Thursday, January 31, 2008. Officials will be available to answer media questions concerning current activities underway at the site. This arrangement will allow for the public to use the entire public meeting to get information and have their questions answered.
For a history of known contamination, testing, and clean-up efforts at the site from 1953 to September 2007, see this PDF timeline created by the Buncombe County Health Department.
Investigative journalist Michael Collins alerted us to this news about newly disclosed TCE detects in Runkle Canyon near where KB Homes has plans to build:
KB Homes had hoped to build 461 residences in the 1,595-acre canyon, but those plans have been delayed since the summer of 2006 when Southwick and a cadre of residents who call themselves the “Radiation Rangers” (See: “Dirty Business,” Nov. 1, 2007) questioned the safety of the project.
[…]
The Reporter has obtained a December 2007 study of offsite pollution around SSFL prepared by an Arcadia-based environmental engineering firm MWH for Boeing, NASA and the Department of Energy which shows that TCE has been detected in approximately 10 percent of several dozen groundwater samples collected on Runkle Canyon property.
[…]
Around 1.73 million gallons of TCE were used at [Santa Susana Field Laboratory] as a solvent to hose down rocket engines, as the Reporter first revealed during its investigation of the Runkle Canyon-adjacent Ahmanson Ranch development. That project tanked over toxic troubles in 2003 before becoming state park land (See: “Air Apparent,” Feb.13, 2003). Approximately 530,000 gallons of the carcinogen, which is a volatile organic compound, have seeped into the area’s groundwater. With the current rate of remediating TCE being less than 10 gallons a year at SSFL, it will take more than 50,000 years to clean up.
Read more in Down the Test Tubes at the Ventura County Reporter (CA). For additional documents that Michael uncovered and ongoing developments in the Runkle Canyon story, see his investigative environmental news website at EnviroReporter.com.
The East Valley Tribune (AZ) has a link to this helpful map of the affected service area (click the image to enlarge):
Over the past few days, news reports coming out of Scottsdale and Paradise Valley have suggested that all Arizona American Water customers were notified of the failure that caused elevated levels of TCE to pour through their taps.
According to EPA (emphasis added),
AZ American Water and the PCs went into response mode and notified all customers who would have gotten that water;
According to news reports (emphasis added):
Private water utility Arizona American Water Co. advised its nearly 5,000 customers in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley Wednesday to drink bottled water after discovering a malfunction that may have allowed a suspected cancer-causing chemical into their tap water.
The TCE Blog has learned that these statements simply are not true. As we have learned from residents, many were not notified by the water company. Two examples of the comments and emails we have received follow below:
I am a customer of AZ-american water, and I was not informed of the risk today. I have lived in the same house since 1986, and have had the same phone number, so I question whether everyone was informed. I did not learn about it until the 10 o’clock news.
Please update your blog so that it accurately reflects that AW did NOT notify “all consumers through its automated-feature call” as they told the media. In fact, Kiva Elementary School and all the residents [we] have spoken with in our neighborhood…did not learn about the TCE contaminated water supply from American Water, but from our local evening news. Many of our neighbors were still unaware of the situation the next day until we informed them. Moreover, there are likely many elderly individuals who to this day are not aware that they should not be consuming the TCE-contaminated water.
American Water has been far less than candid with its consumers and the public. This company has a poor track record when it comes to accurately reporting TCE contamination. Please don’t give AW credit for notifying customers when in fact it did not.
Meantime, a number of folks have written to us asking about the safety of using TCE-contaminated water for bathing or washing clothes (or other uses not explicitly warned against by the water company). Since TCE can be absorbed through the skin and since TCE can vaporize and get into the air people breathe, the TCE Blog recommends against any use of water that is contaminated above the federal MCL (5ppb). Sadly, it’s no surprise to us that locals aren’t hearing this from the water company…
As always, we’ll try to keep you posted as more develops.
KVAL Channel 13, a CBS station in Eugene, OR, has the following story posted on their website:
From 2004 to 2006, air samples were taken from homes in the Trainsong area. The results showed crawl-spaces filled with high amounts of cancer-causing agents from tainted groundwater.
Precautionary measures were taken for those homeowners. Now comes the task of determining if those measures worked.
“I didn’t know there was a problem until last year,” said Trainsong resident, Glenda Carroll.
Carroll lived in the Trainsong neighborhood with her husband for almost twenty years. She says he died last last January from kidney failure.
“They say kidney failure is one of the things that this causes. I can not tell you how many cats I’ve had that have died of kidney failure in this house,” said Carroll.
Carroll lives in one of ten homes being tested for the presence of the chemicals TCE and PCE.
Officials reportedly believe the contamination came from Union Pacific Railway maintenance that was conducted across the street from the affected area. For the rest of the story, see here.
According to this report from Midland Reporter-Telegram (TX), the Midessa Ground Water Plume may soon be added to the Superfund list:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is looking for a responsible party or parties in west Midland County groundwater contamination and will make them pay for the cleanup if they are found, an EPA official says.
Remedial Project Manager Vince Malott of Dallas said the public comment period ended in November and his agency may put the project on its national “Superfund” list in late March or April.
“We have an enforcement officer working with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on potential leads to where the (contamination) source originated,” Malott said on Monday. “We’re still searching for the likely source and don’t have a lead we can announce.
“Once we get to that point, we will send the responsible party a notice and give them an opportunity to reply. We’re avoiding using taxpayers’ dollars if we can find viable financially responsible partners.”
[...]
When the situation was first announced in September, [well] water was reported to contain MCLs of dichloroethene, trichloroethene, dichlorothane and tetrachloroethene — all solvents that possibly had been used for degreasing or breakdown products disposed of unsafely.
TCEQ said the water supplies of 168 people were contaminated, including residents of Midessa Oilpatch RV Park and private wells just east of the Midland-Ector County line.
Read the full story here.
Note: Though EPA’s website is light on details, it tell us that PCE was detected in wells at concentrations as high as 1200ppb. Like TCE, the federal action level for PCE in water wells is 5ppb. As though this wasn’t bad enough, there were 3 other toxins found in these wells, including TCE (at what levels, the EPA does not say). Perhaps more revealing, however, is EPA’s note that:
There is no muncipal city water supply available to this rural sector of Midland county currently, or for the foreseable future. TCEQ has not yet defined the outer boundary of the plume.
Makes us wonder what the affected residents are drinking, bathing, and cooking with. Then there’s the question of how safe their air is. With significantly elevated levels of toxins running underground and seeping into wells, surely vapor intrusion must be a concern. What are the chances residents have been warned?
This week’s Press & Sun-Bulletin (NY) reports:
This winter, state health and environmental officials will begin testing homes in Endicott and the Town of Union for signs of hazardous chemicals flowing in the ground around them.
The area includes more than 12 blocks of residential and commercial property, mostly between June Street on the north and Main Street on the south. It extends west to North Grippen Avenue into the Town of Union, and east to South Loder Avenue in Endicott, according to records from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Officials declined Thursday to say how many structures would be tested, or when, until residents in the area are notified. Letters were mailed from Albany on Wednesday, said Lori O’Connell a spokeswoman for the state DEC.
Officials from the DEC and state Department of Health have scheduled a public meeting to outline plans and answer questions. The meeting will be at 7 p.m. Jan. 23 in Union-Endicott High School.
Samples collected outside of homes last summer gave scientists a more complete picture of a subterranean plume of trichloroethylene (TCE) flowing under the neighborhood, according to information from the state DEC. An analysis of the samples documented concentrations of the solvent — one widely used as a degreasing and cleaning agent — in the ground water up to 900 parts per billion.
Read the full story here.
Back in December, news stories revealed that Myrtle Beach, SC has been contaminated with TCE for decades. Despite knowledge by the polluter and state regulators, the public was never warned:
Toxic contamination at the AVX Corp. facility in Myrtle Beach was kept secret for 26 years, and that has some environmental experts and residents questioning why state regulators never did anything to inform the public about a potential health risk.
Even when tests last year indicated the contamination had spread to property adjacent to AVX located on 17th Avenue South in Myrtle Beach, the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control did not notify residents, city leaders or adjacent landowners.
DHEC officials say they usually don’t notify anyone unless there is an immediate health danger.
The case is drawing attention from environmentalists nationwide, including Robert Kennedy Jr., whose Kennedy & Madonna law firm has offered to help residents fight AVX in court.
‘It’s hard to believe everyone just sat on all this information for so long,’ said Kevin Madonna, who, with Kennedy, works with community groups nationwide on environmental issues.
Last week, a follow-up article on Myrtle Beach Online revealed:
Electronics manufacturer AVX illegally dumped groundwater laced with TCE, an industrial degreaser, into the sewer at its 17th Avenue South facility from at least 1985 to 1996, according to a consent order the company signed with DHEC in 1996.
[...]
AVX learned it had high levels of TCE contamination in groundwater at its property as early as 1991, but did not tell state regulators or city officials about the problem until 14 years later.
TCE contamination now has migrated from AVX to groundwater in a 10-block section of Myrtle Beach, environmental tests show. The contamination is not in the city’s drinking water.
Myrtle Beach officials did not learn about the sewer dumping and contamination problems until recently, when the issues were brought to the public’s attention through a series of reports in The Sun News.
DHEC last month narrowed the area where TCE contamination exists to a 10-block parcel north of AVX, sandwiched between Beaver Road and Kings Highway.
Environmental tests last year showed TCE levels as high as 19,200 parts per billion on land near AVX. The EPA has set the safe level at five parts per billion.
We’ll keep you posted as updates become available.
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