|
|
Exposure to cancer- and disease-causing beryllium has become a concern, despite the state’s reassurance that there is nothing to fear.
Helping to distinguish two very different strategies and outcomes, the Stockton Record (CA) reports:
Lodi wrote new ordinances, floated new legal theories and spent about $30 million on a losing strategy to get its contaminated soil and groundwater cleaned.
Modesto used tried-and-true legal methods in a similar cleanup effort. On Tuesday, Modesto was awarded $175 million by a San Francisco Superior Court jury that found chemical companies acted maliciously in failing to disclose the harmful effects of a common dry-cleaning solvent.
Modesto’s victory comes after eight years of legal wrangling and a four-month trial. Like Modesto, Lodi also has waged a long legal battle to have perchloroethylene, or PCE, removed from beneath the central city. But unlike Modesto, Lodi sued property owners and businesses it claimed were responsible for discharging PCE onto the ground and into the city’s leaky sewers.
On June 4, 2004, a federal judge invited Lodi’s attorneys to copy Modesto’s strategy, but the city declined. Lodi’s water ratepayers are funding a majority of the cleanup through a 38 percent rate hike imposed last year by the City Council, even though the case against some suspected polluters is still open.
“It’s just sad,” said Jane Lea, who successfully led a grass-roots effort to place a measure on the November ballot that, if it passes, will rescind the rate increase. “What a difference a decision makes. Two similar cases, and one comes down to where the citizens have to pay for it all. It’s disheartening. I’m happy for (Modesto) that they found an equitable way for their citizens to have their water cleaned.”
According to this morning’s Los Angeles Times (CA):
Senate Democrats on Thursday accused the Bush administration of withholding key details about toxic waste sites that present risks of exposure to nearby residents.
At a congressional hearing, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said the Environmental Protection Agency had designated as confidential the details of about 140 Superfund sites where toxic exposure remained uncontrolled.
Boxer and other Democrats said the secret data included information about how much money and time it would take to clean up the dangerous sites, including one site where the EPA predicted it would take 26 years to close off access to toxics.
“This isn’t a question of left or right,” Boxer said, waving a document marked “Privileged” by EPA officials to prevent its release to the public. “This is a question of right and wrong.”
The EPA said that it had blocked only information related to law enforcement and that the public had access to all relevant health-risk data for the sites, seven of which are in California.
Read the full story here
According to this San Francisco Chronicle (CA) report:
A jury has hit two chemical companies with $175 million in punitive damages for failing to warn dry cleaners about the dangers of a solvent that contaminated underground water in the city of Modesto.
The San Francisco Superior Court jury awarded the city $100 million against Vulcan Materials Co. and $75 million against Dow Chemical Co. Tuesday. On Friday, the same jury assessed those companies and four other manufacturers more than $3.1 million to compensate Modesto for its costs in installing filters to keep the chemical, perchloroethylene, out of its drinking water.
The chemical, widely used in the U.S. dry cleaning industry, has been linked to increased levels of cancer in dry cleaning employees, Duane Miller, a lawyer for the city, said Wednesday. He said the city’s lawsuit accused the manufacturers of keeping quiet about the dangers from 1978, when they received the first warnings from the federal government, until 1992, when they started telling dry cleaners not to dispose of the chemical in sinks or sewers.
“We have conduct that went on for more than a decade involving a chemical that was considered to be a known human carcinogen, with effects on a large number of people,” Miller said. He said most of the contamination occurred from the 1960s until the mid-1980s, and cleanup is continuing at several sites in Modesto, one of which is a federal Superfund site, a designation reserved for the worst toxic pollution.
According to the Stockton Record (CA), the case stands in stark contrast to a “discredited” eight-year legal strategy pursued in Lodi:
Where Lodi sued property owners and businesses it held responsible for underground pollution, Modesto successfully sued manufacturers for failing to warn dry cleaners how to use perchloroethylene properly and how the solvent could harm the environment. The chemical, which also is found in industrial solvents, is a suspected human carcinogen.
“We’ll look back at the issues that concerned us and see if there are any new ideas,” Lodi City Attorney Steve Schwabauer said, adding that he expects city officials to be criticized for their decision in 2004 in light of the Modesto verdict. “Two years ago, we had so many huge battles going on … . We couldn’t be tied up in any more litigation.”
After Lodi fired its environmental law team in January 2004, its new lawyers briefly considered following Modesto’s lead. U.S. District Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr., at a June 4, 2004, hearing in Sacramento’s federal court, invited Lodi’s attorneys to sue manufacturers after a state appeals court ruled the previous week that Modesto’s suit could go forward.
Schwabauer said Tuesday that the city was in such turmoil at the time that it didn’t want to pursue another untested legal theory. Not only had it spent $30million on an unwinding legal theory, but Wall Street financier Lehman Bros. was suing the city over a $16million loan.
The Pasadena Star-News (CA) reports:
Toxic chemical perchlorate has been detected in small amounts in monitoring wells in the Alhambra Superfund site, although water experts disagree on its significance.
Because the levels fluctuate and have not been found in drinking water samples so far, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the city water company are focusing on other contaminants.
But the regional water authority is more concerned.
“Usually you get a hit, and usually over time it increases,” said Gabriel Monares, director of resources for the San Gabriel Valley Water Quality Authority. “It means there’s a flow, and it’s starting to go that way.”
[...]
Production wells are deeper than monitoring wells and can run 600 to 700 feet deep, Montan said. While monitoring wells are designed to characterize underground contamination, they aren’t necessarily representative of water people are drinking, said Lisa Hanusiak, U.S. EPA remedial project manager.
“We intentionally install the wells where we think we are going to detect contamination – in former industrial areas and whatnot,” she said. “Monitoring well data is more conservative in measuring the highest levels of contamination.”
The EPA and city say focus should remain on cleanup of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, a major area contaminant. Driving current investigations is the search for VOCs, specifically those known as TCE, PCE and 1,2,3-TCP, Hanusiak said.
The chemicals are commonly used as industrial solvents. The city has awarded bids to construct a 7,000-gallon-per-minute facility to treat those contaminants.
However, the San Gabriel Water Quality Authority worries the perchlorate problem could worsen, making cleanup more expensive and complicated.
“If perchlorate is there, it takes a $4 to $6 million project and turns it into a $30 million dollar project,” Monares said.
[...]
“[Perchlorate is] the big bad word right now,” said Bob Kuhn, San Gabriel Basin Water Quality Authority board member. “That’s what everyone’s afraid of.”
[...]
“We’re having a hard time finding out where it’s coming from,” Monares said, adding that funding any necessary cleanup becomes trickier. “We need the state to step up and help us.”
Read the full story here
Somehow we’ve missed a fair amount of info re: vapor intrusion in Norco schools and concerns about contamination from Wyle Labs.
Since the The Press-Enterprise (CA) provides a helpful page dedicated to the Wyle Labs contamination story (free reg. req’d), we’re able to provide this news roundup, picking up from November of last year and continuing up to this past March:
Wyle reportedly claimed that Vinyl Chloride detected in the Norco High Science building wasn’t theirs. This put an unexpected snag in the state’s clean-up plan. Wyle’s claims didn’t appear to have everyone convinced, as it was reported that the mother of a female student said she believes her daughter’s leukemia (recently diagnosed) may be due to contamination from Wyle Labs. This was said to be the third case of leukemia from the high school within the past three years and the girl’s mother was told by the local doctor to pull her other child out of the school.
Experts from the state denied there is any connection between illness and the contamination at a meeting in which they tell the locals: the contaminant levels are low, the kids are not at risk, teachers are only sort-of at risk. Folks didn’t seem convinced; at least one called for the closure of the Science building.
In early March, state investigators found cracks in the bedrock under the community and hailed the discovery as a major breakthrough in tracking the Wyle contamination. At the same time, the state also indicated it would order Wyle to test the indoor air in homes.
Finally, in later March, another public meeting was held…and another parent called for the closing of the Norco High Science building.
–
And as far as we know, that brings us current with published reports. If we learn more, as always, we’ll keep you posted.
4 words: GO SEE THIS MOVIE
The Ithaca Journal (NY) reports:
Cornell University sent the 2005 Annual Report Executive Summary [PDF, 24K] for the Chemical and Radiation Disposal Sites. Highlights for the radiation site include: areal extent of the paradioxane plume was significantly smaller than in 2003; no radionuclides or volatile organic compounds (VOC) were detected in groundwater above limits; one surface water sample was positive for paradioxane; and the groundwater recovery system pumped 3.7 million gallons during the year. Highlights for the chemical waste site include: the area of the VOC plume remained stable with trichloroethylene (TCE) detected above 5ug/l in 7of the 21 monitoring wells; low levels of TCE detected in surface water on airport property; and 2.3 million gallons of groundwater pumped from the disposal site and 10.6 million gallons from the plume control system. The Groundwater Treatment Plant processed the nearly 16 million gallons to the discharge limits with the exception of dissolved iron and generated 1.25 tons of spent activated carbon and bag filters.
The former Radiation Disposal Site (RDS) and former Chemical Disposal Site (CDS), located just north of the Tompkins County Airport.
The two former disposal sites are located one-third of a mile apart, just north of Tompkins County Airport. The shaded areas indicate where the groundwater is believed to be contaminated by chemicals migrating from the sites.
The Associated Press reports:
Pollution has been found in 19 water wells on property owned by Hutterite families in the Deep Creek area, and environmental experts say the source appears to be a Cold War-era missile battery.
Three toxic chemicals [TCE, Perchlorate and NDMA] have been found in the wells west of Spokane near Riverside State Park, one a common military engine degreaser and the other two typically found in rockets such as those in Nike anti-aircraft guided missiles, Environmental Protection Agency officials said.
“The combination of these three chemicals is fairly unique,” an EPA remedial project manager, Harry Craig, told The Spokesman-Review. “The only places that I’ve seen that is at rocket motor facilities” in California and at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado.
The agency reported the findings May 16 to the Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for the cleanup of military pollution. Corps spokesman Steve Cosgrove told the newspaper Wednesday a decision on cleanup is likely months away.
Read the full story here.
Writer Lizzie Grossman has just announced the publication of her new book. Our copy is on its way from Amazon.com. Readers are encouraged to check it out:
From: Elizabeth Grossman
Date: May 18, 2006 10:11 PM
Subject: High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics and Human Health
I’m pleased to announce the publication of my new book, High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics and Human Health (Island Press, May 2006). The Wall Street Journal has called electronic waste “the world’s fastest growing and potentially most dangerous waste problem.” “High Tech Trash” explores the environmental impacts of the whole life-cycle of high tech electronics and solutions to these problems. For additional information, see http://islandpress.org/media/releasehtt.html. Please share this with anyone you think might be interested ~ and please don’t hesitate to contact me as well.
Here is some advance praise for the book:
“Lizzie Grossman is among our most intrepid environmental sleuths-here she uncovers the answer to one of the more toxic questions of our time.” Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature
“In this astonishingly wide-ranging investigation, Elizabeth Grossman exposes the toxic fallout from manufacturing and discarding high-tech gadgetry.”Elizabeth Royte, author of Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash
“Elizabeth Grossman has written an important book. It will change the way you shop, the way you invest your money, maybe change the way you vote. It will certainly change the way you think about the high tech products in your life.” Kathleen Dean Moore, author of The Pine Island Paradox
“In lyrical and compelling language, High Tech Trash exposes the ecological underside of the sleek, clean world of electronic communication. Who knew that miniature semi-conductors required such vast amounts of toxic chemicals for their creation? Who knew that these chemicals have now become as globalized as the digital messages their products deliver? From Arctic ice caps to dumps in southern China, Grossman takes readers on an amazing world tour as she reveals the hidden costs of our digital age. This is a story for our times.” ~Sandra Steingraber, author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment
This map was published recently in the Sacramento Bee (click picture for slightly larger version):
According to the paper, “The migrating plume of contaminated groundwater found responsible [for] deaths and illnesses in a recently settled case has spread considerably. Aerojet’s cleanup efforts, however, have sharply reduced the concentration of pollutants.”
According to this report in Wednesday’s Sacramento Bee:
Aerojet-General Corp. has agreed to pay a $25 million settlement after a jury found the defense contractor responsible for the deaths of three former Rancho Cordova residents and the illnesses of four others who drank tap water contaminated with rocket fuel.
A Sacramento Superior Court jury awarded more than $14 million in damages to the plaintiffs last week following a twomonth trial. Aerojet officials, faced with possible punitive damages, agreed Friday to settle the case for an additional $11 million.
[...]
The jury found Aerojet “was negligent with respect to its operations, chemical handling, treatment and/or disposal process” of toxic chemicals.
“I was very impressed with the intelligence and attention span of the jury,” said Gary Praglin, a Los Angeles lawyer representing the plaintiffs.
[...]
The jury’s findings pertained to Aerojet’s operations in the 1960s and 1970s when the key clean-water and hazardous-materials laws were in their infancy and utilities did not routinely monitor drinking water for the chemicals Aerojet dumped. At the time, Aerojet disposed of residual rocket fuel and metalcleaning solvents in unlined open pits, allowing the contaminants to seep through the soil and into the groundwater tapped for Rancho Cordova homes.
The case involved three water contaminants linked to Aerojet operations: perchlorate, an oxidizing component of solid rocket propellant known to cause thyroid disorders; NDMA, a cancercausing combustion product of liquid rocket fuel; and trichloroethylene (TCE), an industrial solvent that has been linked to brain damage, liver cancer, skin diseases and immune disorders.
The jury found Aerojet’s negligence “was a substantial factor” in causing thyroid disease in the four surviving plaintiffs and in causing the deaths of three others from lymphoma, a cancer of the blood, and melanoma, a skin cancer, according to the verdict. The individual damages awarded ranged from $150,000 to $5 million. The suit was filed in the late 1990s on behalf of the stricken or their survivors: Cheryl Fischer- Smith, who died as a result of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma; Pamela Lowndes who succumbed to melanoma; Deangela Smith, Terilynne Steinman and Joan Van Den Berg, for their thyroid disorders; Donna Marinelli, who has thyroid cancer; and her father, Anthony Marinelli, who died of lymphoma.
“The settlement these people got was real nice, but it will not pay for the suffering they went through,” said Greg Voetsch, 72, whose family reached itsown settlement about two years ago in a similar case against Aerojet. Before moving to Rancho Cordova in 1970, the family lived in the Los Angeles County city of Azusa – in the shadow of another Aerojet plant. The water supplying that neighborhood has been found to be polluted with perchlorate and TCE.
In the 1980s, Voetsch said his wife, Doris, 70, developed breast cancer. Voetsch said he has had thyroid cancer as have two of his daughters.
Then early this year, after the family bought a new car and began making home improvements with the settlement money, doctors began to find one cancer after another in Doris Voetsch, first in her colon, then her lungs, then her throat and, most recently, a recurrence of breast cancer that led to a full mastectomy.
[...]
California has by far the most extensive perchlorate contamination in the country, with nearly 300 affected wells. Today, the Arden-Cordova Water Service and the Sacramento County Water Agency have 14 fewer wells to serve 60,000 Rancho Cordova residents because of Aerojet pollution. Regulators and affected industries have been wrestling over setting a “safe” limit of perchlorate in drinking water.
Though we’ve already quoted liberally from it, you can read the full story here.
Note: It looks like the story was carried by the Sacramento Buiness Journal two days earlier. They include an explanation of the size of the lawsuit (# of plaintiffs) over time:
Hundreds of plaintiffs were involved in four lawsuits against Aerojet over perchlorate, a component of rocket fuel, and other contaminants that leached into drinking water wells. Plaintiffs dropped out over time, leaving about 60 plaintiffs in three consolidated lawsuits by summer 2004. By the time trial began, it was down to two cases and 10 plaintiffs, according to courthouse personnel.
Also from last week:
The state Assembly on Wednesday passed legislation that will
shorten the lag time for homeowners between when their homes are tested
for trichloroethylene, or TCE, and when they receive the test results.
Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, D-125th, sponsored the bill.
Under the law, the state Department of Environmental Conservation would
have a one- month limit between the time it secures a valid test and
when homeowners need to be notified of the test’s findings. Lifton said
some Ithaca homeowners were waiting two months or longer for their results.
“For a while we were sympathetic to the DEC, but I just think it’s
unacceptable for people to be sitting around feeling anxious, wondering
about their kids, if they’re sitting in a pool of pollution, so I
decided to draft a bill,” Lifton said.
Read more here
We’re a little slow in sharing this news from last week in the Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY):
The state Assembly passed legislation Wednesday that would require landlords to notify tenants about risks from pollution like the kind affecting properties in Endicott.
The bill, authored by Assemblywoman Donna A. Lupardo, D-Endwell, would require landlords of affected properties to advise tenants about vapor intrusion — a process in which vapors from subterranean chemical spills waft into homes.
The pollution, primarily from trichloroethylene (TCE) “poses a serious health concern for some of my constituents,” Lupardo said Wednesday.
[...]
The bills were introduced after an investigation by the Press & Sun-Bulletin, published Oct. 30, found more than 50 renters unknowingly living in apartment buildings in a polluted section of Endicott without systems to prevent vapor intrusion. Some of them were expectant mothers and families with young children.
Advocates applauded the passage of the bill. “We have to have more open communication. With everything going on here, we have to know people are safe,” said Betty Havel, a village trustee and environmental advocate.
Read more.
Haven’t had the chance to read it yet, but wanted to point readers to this newly released report from the U.S. Geological Survey. Trichloroethylene (TCE) and tetrachloroethylene (PCE) are featured in a few places. More to come once we’ve read it…
Feel free to discuss in the meantime.
Cyndi Klapperich has this to say in May 2’s Northwest Herald Online:
If the allegations made by Philadelphia attorney Aaron Freiwald are true, officials at five Ringwood industries not only poisoned area groundwater for decades, but concealed their miserable conduct…
Freiwald says officials at these companies not only knew better, but intentionally hid their knowledge that groundwater had been severely contaminated. If he’s right, that’s unforgivable, and should be severely punished.
Read the full piece here
The San Diego Union Tribune (CA) reports:
Last year, routine semi-annual tests found low levels of trichloroethylene, or TCE, and tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, in groundwater near the landfill.
In an effort to identify the source of the solvents, which are common industrial compounds, further tests were conducted, leading to the discovery of benzene on and off the landfill.
[...].
“Our concern was the solvents might be migrating up to the residences through soil vapors,” [hydrogeologist for the county*, Barry Pulver] said. As a result, 20 soil-vapor samples, at a depth of one to five feet, were taken on Dehia in the Garden Road neighborhood.
TCE and PCE levels were low to nonexistent, but benzene was present in all tests, with peak concentrations of 49 parts per billion on the west side of Dehia and steadily decreasing on the east side.
As the article continues, we are told that regular updates on the investigation will be posted to the County of San Diego’s Department of Environmental Health website.
A quick review of their website leads to the first installment, where you can read a thoughtfully named fact sheet called Monitoring at Poway Landfill.
* hey, isn’t that an old Kenny Rogers song?
With about 60 percent of Dutchess County residents getting their water supply from groundwater — interest in keeping it clean and abundant, especially with increased pollution, is important to many residents.
On Oct. 29, the Groundwater 2005 Conference will be held at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Eleven geologists, environmental consultants, hazardous waste engineers, research scientists, state officials and other speakers will present information. The conference is intended for the public, politicians, developers and members of planning and zoning boards.
Read more in the Poughkeepsie Journal
(Tort, from the French word for “wrong”, is a legal term which refers to a civil wrong or wrongful act, whether intentional or accidental, from which injury occurs to another. A toxic tort refers to such an act which causes personal injury due to exposure to a toxic substance – like TCE, for example.)
Toxic Tort News is a blog that launched in August of 2005. From their first post:
Welcome to Toxic Tort News!
My name is P. K. Scott and I work for the risk assessment consulting firm, ChemRisk, Inc. which specializes in litigation support and expert witness services for defense firms. We are experts in human health risk assessment, environmental exposure assessment, and occupation exposure assessment. My particular areas of expertise are in exposure assessment, statistics, and fate and transport modeling.
This blog will present posts of news stories, blog entries, and published scientific articles about a vast array topics related to science issues related to litigation, especially in the areas of toxic tort, pharmaceutical, and product liability litigation. Currently, I have planned a summary of the latest news on the Vioxx litigation, the latest news regarding asbestos, and the latest news regarding a number of high visibility chemicals (PFOA, dioxin, PCBs, metals, TCE, etc.)
They have recently picked up on the emerging story of TCE contamination and litigation in Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania and were gracious enough to provide a link to us in their post. For those interested in law and legal matters, please check out Toxic Tort News.
To Toxic Tort News readers: Welcome…and thanks P.K.
It’s hard to tell from the story if they are referring to trichloroethylene (TCE) or tetrachloroethylene (PCE) below, but, nonetheless, the Salt Lake Tribune (UT) reports:
Petroleum and solvents in the soil and groundwater beneath what was once a downtown mall are stalling Ogden’s effort to build a high-adventure recreation center.
The concentration of the solvent tetrachloroethylene (TCE) in the groundwater of one test hole was at 13 parts per billion, more than twice the contaminant level the state allows for drinking water, Thiriot said.
Thiriot, who is manager of site assessment for the state’s Superfund program, said the TCE concentration found so far is not a grave concern.
But TCE is heavier than water, so more tests are needed to determine whether the groundwater underlying the future recreation center is seriously polluted.
“If they increase in concentration as we go deeper, then we’ve got a problem,” Thiriot said.
Read more.
|
|
