|
|
In early January, the first of several anticipated lawsuits was filed against IBM. 94 plaintiffs filed suit in NY State Supreme Court in the County of Broome, all asserting that IBM was responsible for vapor intrusion by TCE that caused them harm. Nearly 1,000 plaintiffs are expected to file in the coming months. Read the full story in the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin (NY).
Along with the story, the paper has a handy PDF link to the complaint (aka lawsuit document) that was filed. From the complaint, we learn that a number of different attorneys and firms are representing the plaintiffs. They include (profiles and homepages linked where available):
LEVENE, GOULDIN & THOMPSON, LLP
By: Philip C. Johnson. Esq.
450 Plaza Drive
Vestal, New York 13850
(607) 763-9200
WEITZ & LUXENBERG, P.C.
Ellen Relkin, Esq.
180 Maiden Lane – 17th Floor
New York, New York 10038-4925
(212) 558-5500
FARACI LANGE, LLP
Stephen G. Schwarz, Esq.
400 Crossroads Building
2 State Street
Rochester, New York 14614
(585) 325-5150
WILLIAMS CUKER BEREZOFSKY
Gerald J. Williams, Esq.
1617 J.F.K. Boulevard – Suite 800
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103
(215) 557-0099
LAW OFFICES OF HENRY GLUCKSTERN
Henry Gluckstern, Esq. (outdated profile)
41 Park Road
Maplewood, New Jersey 07040
(973) 763-0998
BEEMER & BEEMER
John Barry Beemer, Esq.
114-116 North Abington Road
Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania 18411
(570) 587-0188
MASRY AND VITITOE
Nancy S. Eichler, Esq.
5707 Corsa Avenue – Second Floor
Westlake Village, California 91362
(818) 991-8900
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.
Big day in the TCE world today, marked by 1 word: LEGISLATION.
Okay, maybe two words: PROPOSED LEGISLATION
Today, Senators Clinton, Dole, Boxer, Lautenberg, and Kerry introduced a bill that proposes to:
Amend the Safe Water Drinking Act to protect the health of susceptible populations, including pregnant women, infants, and children, by requiring a health advisory, drinking water standard, and reference concentration for trichloroethylene vapor intrusion, and for other purposes.
Cited formally as the “Toxic Chemical Exposure Reduction Act of 2007″ (get it? “TCE Reduction Act”?) the Senators have proposed that EPA revise the national standard for allowable TCE levels in public drinking water, create a national standard for allowable TCE in indoor air, and enforce nationwide monitoring and cleanups based on these new standards. All of this is proposed to occur within the 3-18 months of the bill’s enactment.
Since the details of the bill are interesting and worth comment, we’ll post them here shortly. For now, we’ll say this: We think this bill, if passed and enforced, could go a long way towards better protecting the public from TCE.
Of course, if the EPA chooses to or is forced to play politics, we also envision ways that they could still stagnate change even if the bill is passed…
As we said, more to come from us on this. Meantime, you can download the full bill here.
Lastly, we are in the process of contacting Senators from our home state, Connecticut, to ask for their support for this legislation. We strongly urge readers to contact their state Senators as well.
(If any readers do contact their Senators for support, please consider letting us know the kind of feedback you receive. If we’re able to keep track of whom has pledged their support, we’ll keep readers posted by running updates on this blog. What could possibly be more exciting?)
UPDATE: For the official press release from Senator Clinton announcing the proposed legislation, see here.
According to this report in The Ithaca Journal (NY):
Emerson Power Transmission met the first deadline outlined for the company in a recent letter from the Department of Environmental Conservation. The company, which is in the process of evaluating remediation for 25 possibly contaminated Areas of Concern on its South Aurora Street property, was asked to schedule a site visit by June 8.
Diane Carlton, a DEC spokesperson, said a conversation was held on June 6 that met the requirement.
“We have a meeting set up with them to discuss the pertinent issues in the letter,” she said.
Emerson has been actively working to remediate its South Hill site since trichloroethylene, or TCE, contamination was found still to be leaking from a fire-water reservoir about three years ago. The leak was first identified about 20 years ago.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation’s local efforts regarding TCE and Emerson Power Transmission look to be entering into a long overdue era. Twenty years after a TCE leak was discovered and three years after the severity of the spill was upgraded, the DEC is setting immediate goals for Emerson to rectify the problem.
[...]
We are cautiously optimistic that the DEC is entering into a new era with faster, tougher and more stringent cleanup standards. That will benefit this area in the Emerson cleanup and beyond.
Read it here.
New York Newsday reports:
Nassau County has warned the 47 water districts it monitors that they need to immediately report any excessive level of contaminants in their water supply.
The warning was issued about a month after the Nassau County Health Department said it learned that the Village of Hempstead had failed to report that one of its wells had contamination from an industrial solvent at twice the allowable levels.
[...]
Water from the affected well had 11.8 parts per billion of trichloroethylene, or TCE, when it was tested on April 3, more than a week after a routine quarterly test showed a level of 10.1 parts per billion, twice the allowable limit of 5 parts per billion, according to a notice sent to village residents last week.
The 11.8 reading was “the highest ever seen in this well,” the village said, but the source of the contamination still was unknown, according to the notice.
Neither state nor federal environmental agencies have been able to identify the source of the contamination, although village officials suspect it might be a federal superfund site at the Old Roosevelt Field in Garden City.
Read more here.
We are happy to see the DEC taking the area’s environmental concerns seriously, especially in wake of the TCE legacy that we appear to have inherited though we didn’t ask for it. TCE is a likely carcinogen, as The Journal’s Jennie Daley has reported often in recent years, and health problems are possible for those exposed to it.
Read more.
According to The Ithaca Journal (NY):
Emerson Power Transmission is facing new deadlines for its South Hill cleanup.
A letter from the Department of Environmental Conservation dated May 31 uses strong language to outline work it expects Emerson to complete. The letter includes five dates by which certain targets must be met, including completion of an investigation of the factory property by the end of August.
…
In the May 31 document, the following deadlines are written out:
* By Aug. 31 the Supplemental Remedial Investigation work plan should be submitted, including a schedule of investigative activities that outlines plans for all the associated field work.
* By Oct. 31 the Supplemental Remedial Investigation report on the findings should be filed and include the scope of the feasibility study. The feasibility study will outline possible remediation approaches.
* By Dec. 31 the feasibility study should be submitted.
The document also calls for a site visit to be arranged by June 8.
From Thursday’s Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY):
State lawmakers on Wednesday again passed a bill that would require landlords leasing polluted property to disclose the property’s status to prospective tenants.
A similar measure was vetoed by Gov. George E. Pataki in August.
The bill’s authors, Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, D-Endwell, and Sen. Thomas W. Libous, R-Binghamton, expect Gov. Eliot Spitzer to sign it.
The bill would inform renters about problems such as vapor intrusion — a process in which underground pollution forms gases that seep into buildings. The problem affects hundreds of properties in Endicott and other Southern Tier communities polluted with trichloroethylene (TCE) and similar solvents.
In his rejection note, Pataki stated the requirement was “overly broad” because it required landlords to inform renters about sites even after they had been closed.
Libous said Wednesday that Pataki must have been acting on misinformation from an adviser about the nature of the bill, which would not require landlords to detail the scope and nature of pollution after the site was cleaned, although it would require them to note the status as a closed site.
“I’m convinced that the advice the governor got from his counsel was flawed,” Libous said Wednesday.
The lawmakers introduced an identical bill early last year after a Press & Sun-Bulletin story revealed that some owners of buildings in a polluted area of Endicott had not notified tenants that a subterranean plume of TCE vapors had tainted indoor air.
Thanks to CPEO for this tip:
Neighbors in Cortlandville found out Tuesday night that the government
is going to help them stay safe from a dangerous chemical.
Trichloroethene, or TCE, has been in the water table for years in
Cortlandville. It was used as a degreaser at the old Smith Corona
typewriter factory. The problem went unchecked for years before new
regulations were enforced. TCE is associated with nerve, kidney, and
liver damage.
TCE vapors have been rising into homes through the soil. At a public
meeting Tuesday night, Department of Environmental Conservation showed
new test results, showing the contaminated area [see map] hasn’t moved much from
where it has been for years.
Read the full story here. For more information, see DEC’s Former Smith Corona Facility Fact Sheet.
Lastly, for the record, TCE is associated with more than just nerve, kidney, and liver damage. It has been associated with numerous types of cancer and birth defects. It has been associated with immune system changes as well as cardiac and neurological problems. It has plagued exposed communities across the country. See here for all of our posts related to TCE’s Health Effects.
The Evening Sun (Chenango County, NY) reports:
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is currently performing more soil tests on the ground near Lee Avenue [in Norwich, NY] where a chemical spill took place in the mid 1990s.
URS Engineering Corporation, sub-contracted by the DEC, has hired Nature’s Way Environmental to perform soil borings and install monitoring wells in the neighborhood near the railroad and east of a factory that was previously home to Gee Wiliker’s Kid’s Clothing. The building now houses The Label Gallery.
The company will be continuing previous testing to determine if there are heightened levels of trichlorethylene in the area. TCE has been used as a metal cleaning solvent, a paint stripper and an adhesive solvent.
“URS is currently performing soil borings and installing monitoring wells to determine the extent and direction of the contamination,” said Diane Carlton, a media relations representative at the DEC.
From The Ithaca Journal on Friday:
Newly obtained historical documents from the Tompkins County Department of Health show a mix of chemicals in the soil along Cherry Street where longtime industrial operations were recently linked to contamination on South Hill.
[...]
Documents published by the Journal on May 1 verified that wet steel shavings were brought from Morse Chain to Wallace Steel in the 1960s and ’70s for processing. Emerson now owns the Morse Chain plant and is contending with a legacy of contamination that includes toxic vapors seeping into homes downhill from the factory.
[...]
The chemicals found at Triangle Steel [in 1984] included trichloroethylene, or TCE, 1,1-dichloroethylene, benzene, tetrachloroethene, known as PERC, toluene and ethylbenzene. While the documents don’t identify where on the property testing was done, a letter attached to the results suggests the highest levels of contamination were near a paint storage facility. Activities on the site included steel fabrication, vehicle maintenance, welding and painting.
Read the full story here.
Update: Congressman Hinchey supports new tests of the groundwater contamination:
“Given the location of the operation, oils spilled at the site would be very likely to leach into the adjacent water body,” Hinchey said in the letter [to NY DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis]. “It is clear to me that ground water testing is needed to determine the extent to which contaminants remain and whether new remediation efforts are necessary. I am pleased that you share this view and have expressed a willingness to delineate this problem quickly.”
Victor, NY resident Michael Barry has created a Public Awareness Web Page focused on emerging contamination issues in Victor, NY. It contains links to local news and information regarding recently-highlighted trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination in and around Victor. They have kindly provided a link to this blog as an informational resource (thank you).
They also document the formation of a local task force established in response to local concerns. From the minutes of the first task force meeting, held April 1, 2007, the task force’s stated mission is:
To investigate the contamination in our community, the effects of the contamination from a health and economic standpoint and to educate the community on our findings. Finally, to work with Town, County, State and Federal officials and agencies to ensure that the community is well represented.
If you are looking for more information or would like to get involved in Victor, be sure to check it out.
To Michael, folks visiting us via his website, and all others who have arrived at our blog while looking for information about TCE and Victor, Welcome. Please let us know if there is anything we can do to be helpful.
U.S. Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey, D-Hurley: “It is something that needs to be done.”
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.: “The people of Endicott deserve answers. I also believe that IBM should provide free and open access to the records that the researchers need.”
Read the full article in the Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY).
We’ve not yet reviewed, but wanted to alert readers to the the following documents, available for review at the New York State Health Department’s website:
- Health Consultation – Health Statistics Review Follow-up (Public Comment Draft) – March 26, 2007 – NEW
- Information Sheet – Health Statistics Review Follow-up (Public Comment Draft) – March 26, 2007 – NEW
-
Written Response Form – Health Statistics Review Follow-up (PDF, 11KB, 1pg.) – March 26, 2007 – NEW
From the Information Sheet:
What is a health statistics review?
A health statistics review uses existing health data from data sources like birth certificates and health registries to determine whether health outcomes in a particular community are occurring at higher, lower, or about the same level compared to statewide or national levels after taking into account the age, race, and sex of individuals in the community. A health statistics review does not tell us why elevations or deficits in health outcomes exist and can not prove whether there is a cause and effect relationship between exposure to chemicals and health outcomes. While a health statistics review can take risk factors commonly found on health records into account, a health statistics review may not be able to take into account certain individual risk factors for health outcomes such as medical history, genetics and occupational exposures which may explain the elevations or deficits. Rather a health statistics review can generate hypotheses and may indicate whether a more rigorous study should be considered. This health statistics review follow-up is the second major report resulting from the step-wise approach to addressing health outcome concerns related to environmental contamination in Endicott, NY.
Why was a health statistics review conducted?
A health statistics review was conducted because of concerns about possible exposures to chemicals known as volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Groundwater in the Endicott area is contaminated with VOCs from leaks and spills associated with local industry and commercial businesses. Trichloroethene (TCE) and tetrachloroethene (PCE) are two main VOCs of concern in the area. The VOCs moved from the contaminated groundwater into air spaces in the soil and then into indoor air through cracks in foundations in some buildings, a process known as soil vapor intrusion. Because of possible health concerns, the New York State Department of Health conducted the prior health statistics review and the health statistics review follow-up.
The follow-up health statistics review gathered additional detailed information to see if known risk factors may have played a role in the higher than expected levels of health outcomes shown in the previous review. The follow-up looked at individual birth defect records, birth certificates, cancer records, and death certificates to find information about risk factors such as smoking, occupational history, family medical history, and medication use. Newspaper obituaries, Motor Vehicle records, city directories, and telephone directories were used to trace residential histories.
The follow-up also reviewed two additional birth outcomes, conotruncal heart defects (specific defects of the heart’s outflow region) and stillbirths. The scientific literature suggests that both of these outcomes may be associated with TCE exposures. The follow-up also reviewed cancer incidence for all types of cancer, taking account of race. Findings from the follow-up review as well as the findings from the prior review were used to guide the development of possible options for next steps.
More to come…
More on this from us to come. For now, check out this article from today’s Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY) regarding the discussion at Tuesday’s meeting:
Federal health officials are proposing a $3.1 million study delving into IBM personnel records to determine the cancer rate among 28,000 employees who might have been exposed to chemicals at the Endicott plant since the 1960s.
Lynne Pinkterton, an official with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, said the agency could combine information from personnel and industrial hygiene records kept for decades at the plant to determine cancer rates of people working in manufacturing and in various departments.
The information would address a long-standing question about whether IBM workers who faced exposure to chemicals, including trichloroethylene (TCE), were more likely than other people to become ill.
The interest in chemical exposure became more intense in the Southern Tier after the 2003 discovery that a subterranean plume of trichloroethylene and similar chemicals was flowing from the micro electronics plant on North Street and forming gases that pushed into hundreds of basements through a process called vapor intrusion. IBM sold the plant to Huron Real Estate Associates in 2002.
Read more here.
Following up on their recent story about contamination concerns in the area, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (NY) reports:
About two dozen people, a few of them angry and most of them concerned, spoke out Monday night about a long-standing groundwater contamination issue.
The public forum, called by the Town Board, may have been the first public meeting on the contamination issue since it was first discovered 17 years ago.
About 125 people showed up for the meeting, which was still going strong two hours after it began. The session had to be moved from Town Hall to Victor Intermediate School because of an overflow crowd.
[...]
Members of the crowd were generally respectful, but anxious. Several expressed concern about health issues and property values.
One woman, Deborah Dod, who lives in a subdivision that lies above a plume of contaminated groundwater, said her daughter is chronically ill, and Dod worries that vapors in her home could contribute to her daughter’s illness.
Another resident, Jack Plum, said he worried that the groundwater contamination could spread and affect his Victor home. He questioned why more hadn’t been said publicly about the problem. “This has been going on for 17 years,” Plum said. “What is the town government’s responsibility?”
Town officials said little during the meeting, generally deferring to state experts.
We found this part especially interesting: According to the article, the area’s congressman has called for federal involvement in the investigation, demonstrating what appears to be a lack of confidence in NY DEC:
U.S. Rep. John R. “Randy” Kuhl, R-Hammondsport, Steuben County, has told the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it should take the lead on the Victor matter instead of the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
“He’d be more than happy if the EPA got involved here, because the DEC has kind of run up against the wall,” said Kuhl’s spokesman, Bob Van Wicklin.
Read the full story here.
The Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY) reports:
When health officials found that a polluted area in the village had a disproportionately high rate of premature births and certain cancers, it raised more questions than answers.
Was pollution making people sick?
Were factors other than pollution — such as smoking or occupational exposure — responsible?
Were women living in the area more prone to miscarriages?
Tuesday night, scientists working on the problem with federal and state agencies are scheduled to release their latest findings regarding these and other questions to a citizens group — called the Western Broome Environmental Stakeholders Coalition — and discuss future plans.
Presenters will include representatives from the federal Agency of Toxic Substances & Disease Registry, the state Department of Health and the federal National Institute for Occupational Safety & Health.
According to info printed along with the article, the preso is scheduled for Tuesday, March 27, 2007 at 6:00 pm at:
The First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Ave
Endicott, NY 13760
(607) 748-7434
Click here for google map and directions.
The presentation reportedly will be followed by a public information session to be scheduled in April.
Though we’ve not had a chance to read the full article yet, this news was sent to us from several sources and caught our eye:
Last month, environmental officers began going into the basements of homes set amid the cornfields and hillsides of western Victor, a suburb of Rochester. They told residents they were there to test the air for the presence of toxic vapors rising from industrial chemicals in groundwater below their homes.
Many residents were shocked. This was the first they had heard that their property was contaminated.
Yet the illegally deposited solvents had been in the underground water for decades and were discovered in natural springs in 1990. That discovery forced the village of Victor to stop using the springs for drinking water.
But in the 17 years since, some families have continued to drink the water from private wells, homes have been built atop the contaminated groundwater and those and other homes have been sold to buyers who were told little or nothing about the danger below, a Rochester Democrat and Chronicle investigation has found.
The two-month investigation, involving dozens of interviews and thousands of documents, also found that:
- Some residents were immediately warned about drinking the water, but others were not — and some may have consumed harmful quantities of the solvents, especially trichloroethene, or TCE. Trichloroethene has been the source of concern for residents in the South Hill area of Ithaca, as well as some living near a dry cleaning establishment on Meadow Street.
- State officials haven’t assessed the health effects, and their communication with the dozens of affected families has been haphazard. Neither the state nor the town recalls convening a public meeting on the Victor issue.
- State officials have been unable to determine how the chemicals entered the water supply. Any cleanup remains months or years away.
- For 10 years, state investigators lacked adequate funding to find the spot where the chemicals had been deposited.
- Once a suspected source was found in a sand and gravel mine, the state spent five years in a fruitless effort to persuade its owners to take responsibility for the contamination. A full exploration of the mine has never been conducted.
Today, increasing numbers of residents are worried about the solvents’ potential impact.
Read the full story in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
For more information, be sure to check out the Democrat and Chronicle’s multimedia presentations which include:
- Narrated presentation that details the history of the local contamination problem
- Interactive mapping feature: determine how close your home or building is to nearby contamination sites
- Audio slideshow, a narrated story of the local issue in a broader context including those who have been affected
According to the Press & Sun Bulletin (Binghamton, NY):
Work to find the extent of trichloroethylene pollution at a federal Superfund site near the Vestal Rail Trail is now entering a new phase, almost 25 years after the pollution was first discovered.
In coming weeks and months, scientists will drill more than 16 feet deep to collect water and soil samples they expect will help them understand how much TCE is left under the site and what to do about it, said Ben Barry, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency. The site is just south of Stage Road, near the western end of the trail used by walkers, cyclists, roller skaters and joggers of all ages.
[...]
The new round of environmental testing by the EPA, which may last for months or years, is part of a cleanup that has been ongoing since 1982.
Previous samples from monitoring wells around the site show TCE — the same chemical causing problems in Endicott and Hillcrest — is flowing in water 25 and 100 feet below the ground at concentrations of less than 1 part per billion to 98 parts per billion. Unlike some TCE pollution in other parts of Broome County, the Stage Road pollution hasn’t been found entering homes in the neighborhood.
Read the full story.
|
|