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Honeywell International Corp. will hold a meeting May 26 to discuss how the public will be involved in the cleanup of trichloroethylene in groundwater around the former Besley-Bendix industrial complex on Laurel Street.
The meeting will take place at 6:30 p.m. at Newton School on Shelburne Road.
Neighbors petitioned the state Department of Environmental Protection to declare the plant a public participation site, making the meeting a necessity. The state granted that status March 30.
Read the full story in the The Republican (Springfield, MA).
Traces of hazardous gases are showing up inside the Sanmina SCI complex — workplace for about 750 people in the Town of Owego — prompting the company to install a system to pull pollution from under the circuit board manufacturing plant.
Trichloroethylene (TCE) has been found at concentrations 40 times higher than a guideline recently set by the state Department of Health, according to records filed with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Read the full story in the Press & Sun-Bulletin (Binghamton, NY)
After months of delay, and just days before voters will decide the fate of a statewide environmental bond issue, the state officially declared how it will deal with well contamination near Farmington Avenue.
Called the “statement of decision,” the long-awaited document makes official what many had already known — public water will be provided to in 111 homeowners with contaminated wells. Those wells are contaminated with a suspected carcinogen called trichloroethylene, known as TCE. It has been used in the past as an industrial degreaser as well as a cleaner for septic systems.
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But no water at all will be provided unless the DEP can come up with the money.
Read the full story in the The Mercury (Pottstown, PA)
The TCE treatment system isn’t working and efforts/officials are under scrutiny. Read this sobering story in the Ithaca Journal.
According to this press release on Congressman Maurice Hinchey’s (D-NY) website:
Concerned over the health of Endicott and Ithaca residents as they await the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) final screening measures for trichloroethylene (TCE) contamination, Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) late yesterday afternoon got a powerful House panel to urge the EPA to work with the State of New York to develop interim protective measures. Hinchey successfully appealed to the House Appropriations Committee, of which he is a member, to include the language he authored regarding TCE contamination in the Interior Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2006.
“Getting the House Appropriations Committee on record, recognizing the problem of TCE contamination in Endicott and Ithaca and urging the EPA to work with the state to develop an interim protective plan is a critical step forward in our efforts to keep the public safe,” Hinchey said. “With an EPA report from 2001 indicating that TCE is likely to cause cancer in humans and is up to 65 times more toxic than previously believed, we need to take concrete action to keep residents safe while a more complete safety protocol is developed. We can’t wait around anymore while a comprehensive safety measure is enacted. The residents of Endicott and Ithaca need additional health protection now from this toxic substance. Time is of the essence.”
Bravo, Congressman.
From CBC Montreal (CAN):
The mayor of the town of Shannon, Que. says public officials are finally accepting the negative health effects of ground contamination from the nearby Valcartier military base.
Three times the acceptable level of trichloroethylene (TCE) was found in the town’s water supply in 2000. Residents allege it came from CFB Valcartier.
Mayor Clive Kiley says during a meeting last week, Quebec City public health officials released statistic showing that a quarter of the cancer cases reported over the past 15 years may be linked to the contamination.
While Kiley says he believes the actual infection numbers are higher than those uncovered by the health department, he says this is a good start.
Read more here.
The school board is expected to decide on Monday whether the TCE risk is great enough to relocate its school and destroy the current building. The cost of a new school is estimated at $19 million.
In an article about the questionable closure status of Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, the Portland Press Herald (ME) suggests that the shipyard may be contaminated with TCE.
The EPA’s NPL site narrative confirms this possibility: For nearly 43 years (from 1945 to 1978), TCE was among the wastes that were dumped on the property over an area that ecompasses more than 1/4 of the entire NPL site.
The Culpeper Star Exponent reports:
Residents in nine Culpeper County subdivisions – 364 homes in all – could see their water rates doubled or more within the next 30 days.
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Systems in Pelham Manor and Hazel River would retain the minimum billing system – currently $27 and $30 respectively – but would realize an increase to $60 per month for water under [water company President David] Travers’ proposal. Pelham Manor, which is the oldest Travers said, dates back to 1949. It needs to be entirely replaced, which will cost about $2.2 million.
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[T]he Pelham Manor water system “is in major disrepair,” said Travers, with a well “contaminated with tetrachloroethylene and trichloroethylene.”
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Travers said what it really comes down to is water conservation. Washing your car and watering your lawn are luxuries, he said. These days, teen girls take three showers a day and think nothing of it, he said.
As for the steep rate increases all at one time, Travers had this message for his customers, “Do you want to drink healthy water or don’t you?”
Man, what a dick.
The Los Angeles Times (CA) mentions (free reg req’d) that the city of Lynwood
redevelopment agency will use a $200,000 grant from the EPA for community outreach and to install groundwater monitoring wells at the 10-acre K & K Furniture site, which is contaminated with trichloroethylene. You can read more about the grant from this EPA website.
The Corvallis Gazette-Times (OR)reports:
The continuing investigation of TCE contamination near Albany’s Liberty School has turned up nothing alarming, according to a state official.
Geoff Brown of the state Department of Environmental Quality in Eugene provided an update Friday in advance of a public meeting scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the school.
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“The central message is that there are no alarming results for the school,” Brown said Friday.
Read the full story here.
According to this report in the Loudoun Connection (VA):
The operators of Hidden Lane Landfill, which is slated for testing to determine whether it is the source of the trichloroethylene (TCE) in 22 wells at Broad Run Farms, repeatedly violated restrictions on what was allowed to be dumped at the site, records show.
TERRANCE WHARTON said Tuesday that the unlawful waste led the county to file suit in 1983 to shut down the landfill. He was director of engineering then, and responsible for all of the county’s landfills. He said he found latex and enamel paint cans, tires, and junk cars — including oil, antifreeze and other by-products — in the Hidden Lane Landfill. “A lot of things went in there that should not have,” he said. “We didn’t know what was going in there.” Wharton is now director of Building and Development.
The landfill, which opened in 1971, was supposed to accept construction debris only. It was called a stump dump.
Loudoun County Office of Solid Waste Management documents provide a framework of violations for a landfill that operated for 17 years without a county permit. The owners maintained that the county ordinance requiring a permit was not applicable to them, even after supervisors revised it.
TCE is a chemical used to remove grease from metal parts. Drinking water with small amounts of TCE over long periods of time can cause liver and kidney damage, impaired immune system function and impaired fetal development in pregnant women, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry said.
The generation of leachate, a mixture of water, soil and waste that becomes a contaminated runoff, normally is more toxic in an unregulated sanitary landfill than a stump dump. A sanitary landfill accepts household and restaurant wastes.
The records describe the landfill, adjacent to Broad Run Farms, as “uncontrolled” and “unregulated.”
Read the full story here.
We’ve blogged in the past about the military’s clear vested interest in avoiding any further TCE regulation. The scope of the problem (and the conflict of interest) is becoming more and more apparent:
From the Associated Press via SFGate.com
Thirty-four military bases shut down since 1988 are on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund list of worst toxic waste sites — most of them for at least 15 years — and not one is completely cleaned up.
As the latest base-closing commission begins its work, an examination by The Associated Press shows EPA is concerned with incomplete pollution cleanups at more than 100 Defense Department facilities.
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Of the $23.3 billion in costs from four previous rounds of base closures and realignments, the Pentagon has spent $8.3 billion so far on pollution cleanups and other compliance with environmental laws, congressional investigators say. EPA officials say it will be at least a decade before many are completed — at a cost the government estimates will reach an additional $3.6 billion.
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Hard-to-remove contaminants include trichloroethylene, a cleaning solvent linked to cancer, as well as asbestos-tainted soil, radioactive materials and leaded paint.
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For the Air Force, 98 percent of the delays in transferring 24,000 acres from military hands are due to environmental issues. For the Army, it’s 82 percent of 101,000 acres. For the Navy, it’s 65 percent of almost 13,000 acres, says the General Accountability Office.
If the EPA is truly forced to kow-tow to the White House and its Office of Management and Budget, citizens are likely to find themselves on the losing end of a militarily-prioritized cost-benefit analysis.
Though we haven’t yet read the full study, Newswise reports:
Workers exposed to the industrial solvent trichloroethylene (TCE) show significant changes in the normal balance of immune system regulators called cytokines, reports a study in the May Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).
The study, led by Dr. Ivo Iavicoli of Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Rome, may help to explain previous reports suggesting increased rates of autoimmune disorders among workers exposed to TCE.
The study purports to be the first report on quantitative immune changes induced by occupational exposure to low levels of trichloroethylene and strongly suggests that exposure to this substance alters immunohomeostasis in humans with possible effects on health (see abstract).
Read more in the full press release.
Health officials have previously stated that:
While polluted groundwater has migrated off the hazardous testing facility and beneath surrounding homes, it does not appear to be reaching the homes themselves.
In stark contrast, yesterday’s Press Enterprise (CA) reported:
Three homeowners near Wyle Labs who sought their own tests for pollution found indoor contamination in a neighborhood that state regulators earlier dismissed as being of little health concern.
Lawyers representing Wyle-area homeowners in a class-action lawsuit against home builders Western Pacific submitted the tests to Riverside County Superior Court this week in an effort to prove that contamination from the former hazardous testing facility is hurting property values in the Hidden Valley neighborhood south of Wyle.
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Until now, officials with the Department of Toxic Substances Control have been focusing their efforts to track the toxic plume in the neighborhood northwest of Wyle. The latest findings could warrant further testing around homes and schools south of Wyle, residents said.
They conducted three indoor air tests and two outdoor tests — at a total of four sites — along El Paso, near a creek that runs into the neighborhood from Wyle Labs. The tests results showed amounts of the chemical solvent trichloroethylene, or TCE — a solvent used to degrease motor parts — the main pollutant found at and around the Wyle property. Air samples also included more dangerous chemicals that result when TCE breaks down, including vinyl chloride, a known carcinogen. The pollutants were found at levels that exceed the state’s human health screening levels, said Matt Hagemann, the consultant who oversaw the tests. Contamination that reaches the state’s screening level can trigger further scrutiny or cleanup.
Hagemann said the findings are preliminary and should be reviewed by the state.
“Everywhere we tested, we found something,” said Tony Lanza, attorney for the Hidden Valley neighbors. “It confirms what we’ve long suspected, which is that contamination has migrated into the Hidden Valley community, which is something the defendants have denied for years. The homebuyers, many of whom have young families, had a right to know about the contamination at Wyle before they bought their homes.”
Here’s the latest map of the situation:
See the full story here (free reg req’d)
Months ago, NRDC revealed Military and White House methods for countering TCE regulations:
A circular strategy [that] has been used by the polluters to avoid responsibility:
a) deny there is a problem,
b) insist that more scientific study is required,
c) outsource study to private contractors, maintaining tight control over conclusions,
d) create doubt and discrepancy in the scientific literature, and therefore
e) insist more scientific study is required.
Now, Effect Measure highlights a similar strategy by the chemical industry regarding benzene.
Companies like BP, ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Shell Chemical have been accused of trying to cast doubt on findings that benzene exposure is associated with multiple cancer risks. Their strategy? Sponsor their own study where the conclusions are 1) predetermined, 2) intended to contradict earlier findings, and 3) designed to confirm just how benign the chemical really is.
Read more in Benzene: doubtful uncertainty over at Effect Measure.
For more on this topic, be sure to check out our earlier post on Manufacturing uncertainty and the demise of the regulatory system from the Journal of Law and Policy.
The San Jose Mercury News (CA) briefly reports (free reg req’d):
East Palo Alto is about to get a cleanup.
The city received two $200,000 grants Tuesday from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, according to Margot Perez-Sullivan, a spokeswoman for the agency.
One grant will help the BRIDGE Housing Corporation clean up the toxic chemical trichloroethylene from the one-acre former site of Sun Microsystems and Ford Aerospace.
For additional detail regarding the contamination and clean-up, be sure to check out the California Regional Water Control Board’s site clean-up requirements document (in HTML format or MS WORD).
According to this story in the Bradenton Herald (FL):
Lockheed Martin Corp. has located medical records for former Loral American Beryllium Co. employees.
Those health histories could help hundreds of former workers or their survivors qualify for a federal benefits and compensation program to aid employees sickened by exposure to [beryllium and TCE].
[...]
How to get records
Former Loral American Beryllium Co. workers can obtain medical records by contacting Gail Rymer, communications director for Lockheed Martin.
Write: 6801 Rockledge Dr., Bethesda, MD 20817
Call: (301) 897-6934
Fax: (301) 897-6252
E-mail: gail.rymer@lmco.com
The article reports that workers wonder if their illnesses (including lung disease and non-Hodgkins lymphoma) are related to these chemical exposures. Read more.
The Daily Times Chronicle (Woburn, MA) reports:
The Environmental Protection Agency’s Boston office recently hosted a forum at the White Elementary School to release its findings from its investigation into contamination at the former Industri-Plex site in the northeast corner of the city.
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The next step, which is expected to occur sometime over the course of the next few weeks, will be to release a feasibility study and proposed plan “to address human health risks from the Industri-Plex Superfund site to the Mystic Lakes in Winchester and Medford.”
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In addition to arsenic and benzene, the study also shows concentrations of trichloroethene and napthalane in certain areas.
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Copies of the “Comprehensive Multiple Source Groundwater Response Plan Remedial Investigation Report” [are] available on line at the EPA’s Industri-Plex website
Read the full story here.
The Scranton Times Tribune (PA) reports:
The Environmental Protection Agency added two more hazardous waste sites in Pennsylvania to its National Priorities List in late April, giving the commonwealth the second-largest number of high-priority sites in the country.
The state leapfrogged California with the latest additions, none of which are in Northeastern Pennsylvania. With 94 Superfund sites on the priorities list, Pennsylvania trails only neighboring New Jersey and its 113 high-priority hazardous waste sites.
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Along with the two new Pennsylvania sites, Safety Light Corp. in Bloomsburg and Price Battery in Hamburg, the EPA proposed adding a third — Jackson Ceramix in Falls Creek.
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In Northeastern Pennsylvania, the Valmont TCE site in the Valmont Industrial Park in Luzerne County was the last regional addition to the National Priorities List. Added in September 2001, the former upholstery fabric manufacturing site exhibited groundwater contaminated with trichloroethylene, a metal-cleaning solvent.
Read the full article.
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