The Trace Atmospheric Gas Analyzer (TAGA) is a self-contained mobile laboratory capable of real-time sampling and analysis in the low parts per billion level of outdoor air or emissions from various environmental sources and concerns. In addition, the TAGA has specialized sampling equipment for measuring indoor air and at remote locations.

Federal pollution investigators will dispatch a mobile laboratory to Dover this spring as part of an expanded probe of toxic vapor risks from chemical contamination in groundwater flowing under the state’s capital.

The Environmental Protection Agency work will target pollutants spilled into the soil from a former coal gas plant and dry cleaning operation west of the city center.

Studies of the Dover Gas Light Company Superfund site have been under way since the mid-1980s. More than a decade later, officials acknowledged concern that vapors from some of the contaminants might trickle into buildings after escaping from shallow, tainted groundwater.

[...]

Part of the work scheduled for this spring includes use of a mobile Trace Atmospheric Gas Analyzer (TAGA) bus to sample vapors under the bottom slabs of buildings along the contamination plume.

The TAGA samples can be drawn from a small hole drilled into the floor of buildings, in a process that takes about 30 minutes. Some indoor air sampling work also is planned, using small, portable devices that collect samples over a 24-hour period.

[...]

Although public water supplies are considered safe from the pollution, past tests have found shallow groundwater contamination levels in worst-hit areas thousands of times higher than federal drinking water standards.

Chemicals most often mentioned include tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and trichloroethylene (TCE), solvents used in dry cleaning that are known to cause cancer or other health problems after long-term exposure at high levels.

Earlier this month, Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control notified owners of four properties near U.S. 13 and Wrangle Hill Road that they would be eligible for free United Water Delaware connections. The offer followed the unexplained appearance of a cancer-causing chemical, ethylene dichloride, in a well near the St. Georges Getty service station just north of the car dealership.

Officials had assured area residents for more than two decades that pollution from the site of the old Stauffer Chemical Co. toxic-waste landfills to the north was under control. That they were wrong underscores how little is known about how toxic chemicals make their way through complex geological formations into drinking-water supplies.

[...]

By 1982, the plant became Delaware’s seventh named toxic cleanup site following passage of the federal “Superfund” cleanup law, and one of the first to become a federally overseen project. Stauffer and Formosa eventually were ordered to remove pits containing vinyl chloride processing remnants, and to begin pumping and treating more than 400,000 gallons of contaminated water daily from around the site.

Investigators acknowledged decades ago that water “goes in all directions” from the site of the lagoons. But their initial confidence in the safety of deep aquifers used by water suppliers proved misplaced.

Although an EPA report in 1986 said that layers of clay shield the deeper Potomac aquifer from chemicals in more shallow wells, federal officials have since reported discovery of ethylene dichloride in the deepest wells, and in 2006 reported “no evidence” that the overall contamination had been contained in one portion of the upper Potomac Aquifer or the shallow aquifer above it.

“[The water is] just no good. It’s contaminated. The only thing we can use it for is washing the cars,” [resident and local car dealership owner Charles] Stapleford said.

Shazim Uppal, who owns the St. Georges Getty station at Wrangle Hill and U.S. 13, said he was unaware of the current cleanup debate. He is sure, though, that the tainted water near his business prevents the company from selling fountain-type drinks or using plain tap water from a company well.

“We bring in bottled water. If they can put in a pipeline, that would be good. We only use the water in the sink here for cleaning the floor,” Uppal said.

Solvent-tainted wells in Millsboro could drain as much as $10 million from a Delaware pollution cleanup fund — more than 10 percent of expected spending for efforts statewide through 2012, state documents show.

Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control officials hope to quickly shift the costs to those responsible for the contamination of trichlorethylene, or TCE. But agency planners said the fast-moving plume requires immediate action because it threatens shallow aquifers, public and private wells and nearby waterways.

Officials also are monitoring risks in buildings above the contamination as small amounts of toxic vapors trickle upward through the soil.

According to the Delmarvanow.com website:

Parties with ties to the property include Tyco Health Care/ Mallincrodt, Schering-Plough Animal Health Corp., Sterwin Laboratories Inc. and Delaware Poultry Laboratories Inc. Representatives of the companies could not be reached late Thursday.

[...]

Pollution in town drinking-water supplies exceeded the federal limit of 5 parts per billion for TCE by dozens of times before routine testing caught the problem. Stiller-Banning said that levels of around 100 parts per million, 20,000 times higher than the drinking-water limit, were detected at the suspected source.

Stiller-Banning said that the pollution appeared to have moved faster than expected from the source to the town's well, about a third of a mile away. Investigators are continuing to map the extent of the contamination plume.

Read the full story here.

All Related Posts (on one page) | Some Related Posts:

1. TCE clean-up in Millsboro said to cost $10 million; plume still spreading (DE)
2. Parties with ties to Millsboro property identified (DE)
3. TCE traced to former poultry vaccine lab in Millsboro (DE)...
4. Hillsboro investigation continues, source still found (DE)
5. Source of Millsboro TCE identified (DE)
6. Millsboro referendum needed to fund TCE clean-up (DE)

A former poultry health laboratory site off U.S. 113 in Millsboro has been tagged as the likely source of a toxic chemical that tainted Millsboro's drinking-water supply last year, a state official said Thursday.

Cleanup of the contamination could cost "several million" dollars, according to Kathleen Stiller-Banning, a program manager for Delaware's Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

High pollution levels in town wells prompted health officials in October to warn against drinking any water from a system that serves Millsboro and part of Dagsboro. Some of the 3,000 residents affected by the pollution episode relied on bottled water or supplies from emergency tanker trucks for weeks, with service restored only after the installation of a chemical filtration system.

[...]

"The levels are significant at the property," Stiller-Banning said. "Our goal is to try to figure out how to clean it up and to remove any potential continuation" of the well contamination. She added that a cleanup could cost "several million" dollars, with the bill ultimately going to those responsible.

After nearly four months of investigating, state officials have announced a breakthrough in their search for the source of last year’s trichloroethylene outbreak in Millsboro. Paul Wills, a program manager with the site investigation and restoration branch of the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, confirmed to the Sussex Post late last week that the site of a former animal laboratory along U.S. 113 is the most likely cause of last year’s contamination. “At this point, we’re very certain,” Mr. Wills said. “Based upon the levels of TCE that we’re finding, this is the most likely source.”

[...]

“The lab was there in the 1960s, and that was prior even to the (Environmental Protection Agency),” Mr. Wills said. “TCE is a wonderful solvent; that’s why it was used so much. But, way back when, when people wanted to get rid of the stuff, they literally just threw it out the back door."

The town [of Millsboro] has scheduled a referendum to authorize the issuance of bonds to help fund the removal of trichloroethylene (TCE)-- a contaminant detected in the town's water supply last year.

The town's resolution states the Delaware State Revolving Fund will lend the town $200,000 for 20 years at an interest rate that will not exceed 62.5 percent of the municipal bond yield. According to town officials, TCE removal has cost approximately $200,000 up to this point and that figure doesn't include some of the on-going tests.

The referendum is scheduled to take place at the Millsboro Town Hall on Saturday, May 13 from 1 to 7 p.m. Voters do not have to pre-register to participate.

Millsboro residents that are 18 years of age and individuals that live outside of town limits but have interests in town, such as a business or property, will have one vote each.

For more information, contact the Faye Lingo at [302] 934-8171.