Albany homeowners grapple with TCE pollution and vapor intrusion

August 7, 2007 - FORT EDWARD -- This town has become synonymous with the federal government's ongoing efforts to remove PCBs from the Hudson River.But now another pollutant, which hasn't previously received much attention, is starting to roil residents as well.

The danger is underground in a six-street area around General Electric's capacitor plant on Broadway. Four decades of GE operations through the 1980s left behind a plume of PCBs and a potentially carcinogenic solvent called trichloroethylene, or TCE, used to clean machinery.

In 2004, fumes from TCEs, which the U.S. Environmental Protection says are likely to cause cancer in humans, were found seeping out of the ground and into homes -- including the home of Raymond and Jody DeLong on West Summit Street, four blocks south of the GE plant and its parking lots.

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