Radioactive Tritium Found in Groundwater Near Vermont Nuclear Plant

February 5, 2010 - In a community where the elementary school principal's office has a radiation gauge, safety is never far from people's minds. The discovery of radioactive tritium in a groundwater monitoring well at Vermont Yankee nuclear plant has some thinking about it even more now.

"I want it shut down," said Edward Riordan, 42, of Vernon, smoking a cigarette outside Nesbitt's Portside Tavern after lunch Tuesday. "There's radioactivity leaking all over the place."
Riordan, whose late father worked at the plant, said the tritium leak has caused him to rethink his recreational use of the Connecticut River. "I used to swim and fish in it, but I'm not going to now. Now, we're not going to bother."

Tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, can cause cancer if ingested, inhaled or absorbed through skin in large amounts.

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New Jersey Debates Adding Environmental Concerns to Home Deeds

February 3, 2010 - Should homeowners be required to explain environmental concerns on the deeds to their homes when they put their properties on the market? Some residents say yes, but others say no.

Borough Attorney Joe Ragno researched this issue after resident Lisa Riggiola suggested that the borough adopt an ordinance requiring all potential buyers to be notified that the home they are considering is located in the Plume, which is the area in the borough contaminated by DuPont.
During the Jan. 27 Borough Council meeting, Ragno outlined several reasons why such an ordinance would not be a good idea.

"There are some safeguards in place from the state that are already there for buyers that buy properties in the Plume," said Ragno. The attorney explained that describing the contamination on the deed would attach this stigma to the home long after the property was cleaned. "It would potentially be infinite in nature. When this happens, those deeds will still be out there, potentially damaging the people who own those properties," Ragno said.

Laws already in place require the real estate commission and Realtors to disclose this information. In addition, buyers are also protected by the state Consumer Fraud Act, which requires disclosure and punishes sellers who fail to disclose this information.

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TX to Investigate Possible Cancer Cluster in Flower Mound

February 3, 2010- Officials at the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) are preparing to investigate parts of Flower Mound to see if the number of leukemia cases are higher than in other parts of the state.

This comes after concerns of a leukemia cancer cluster in zip codes 75022 and 75028. Residents say that there are five children and two adults within the Wellington neighborhood alone who have been diagnosed with leukemia in the last few years.

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Frisco, TX Residents Concerned About Lead Exposure

February 3, 2010- Some Frisco residents question whether emissions from a local plant have affected the health of neighborhood children.

Some Frisco residents have expressed concerns about possible lead contamination from a local plant. As reported by the Dallas Morning News, the city is considering another health risk study concerning areas near a battery recycling plant currently operated by Exide Technologies Inc., which has lead some to reflect on results of a first study.

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EPA to Visit Calif. Town With Birth Defect Cluster

February 1, 2010- Dozens of people chanted and held signs outside the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency headquarters in San Francisco to draw more attention to a cluster of birth defects in a town near the largest toxic waste dump in the West.

The rally came on the heels of an announcement that a top-ranking EPA official would visit the California farm town of Kettleman City, a town of 1,500 halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Jared Blumenfeld, administrator for the EPA's Pacific Southwest region, promised to probe his own department and make sure "every enforcement, regulatory and permitting action that should've been taken has been taken."

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70 Groups Want Northern Idaho Mine Waste Moved Out

January 27, 2010 - More than 70 organizations from across the country are asking federal officials to stop moving silver mining waste to a new northern Idaho repository.

The environmental and public health groups say storing waste from the Bunker Hill Superfund site at a location just 11 miles down the road poses a public health risk. Storing mining waste in repositories that need perpetual maintenance is a "quick and dirty" solution, they said.

The groups on Tuesday sent a letter to Mathy Stanislaus, assistant administrator of the Superfund program at the Environmental Protection Agency, urging the agency to permanently remove mine waste from the area. The Virginia-based advocacy group Center for Health, Environment and Justice wrote the letter, signed also by the Sierra Club and several state and regional organizations.

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High Nitrate Levels in the Water Wells In This WA County

January 27, 2010 - Federal clean-water regulators will being seeking permission from a number of well owners in Yakima County, Washington to test their water for contamination. The aim is to identify the source of the problem and fix it.

More than 12 percent of wells in the Lower Yakima Valley have tested above the maximum contaminant levels of nitrates. Excessive nitrates can harm infants and people with compromised immune systems.

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Groundwater Contamination is Deeper and Increasing in Pompton Lakes NJ

January 26, 2010- Groundwater contamination beneath a Pompton Lakes neighborhood remains high - and is even increasing in some areas - more than 20 years after the pollution was discovered, according to a new report filed with the federal government.

The worst of the groundwater pollution is at the intermediate and deep soil levels, where the highest contamination is 260 times the state safety threshold. The most polluted areas are near the intersection of Barbara Drive and Schuyler Avenue, as well as Lake Avenue at Park Place, according to the report DuPont filed with the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Former Canton, OH Alliance Plant Site Studied For Contamination

January 26, 2010- Daniel Percy proudly talks about his efforts to rehabilitate a dilapidated house, making it a comfortable family home. Now Percy questions how safe his home is, knowing that a short distance away, FirstEnergy is examining soil for hazardous or toxic materials — remnants of a manufactured-gas plant that burned coal to produce home-heating fuel about a century ago.

“I saw them over there drilling,” said Percy, of the 800 block of E. Patterson Street. “There were samples laying on the ground. White, gray, black. There was some green in it. It was nasty. It smelled like raw sewage. It didn’t look like any type of soil to me. It didn’t look like bedrock. If these kind of chemicals are in the ground, the soil is contaminated.”

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Evansville IN. Contamination Cleanup to Start In March

January 26, 2010- The federal government is gearing up for a project to remove contaminated soils from an Evansville neighborhood starting this spring.

The cleanups in the city's Jacobsville neighborhood is expected to begin in March and take four to five years. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will remove lead- and arsenic-contaminated soil in the yards of about 350 homes and replace it with clean soil.

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