Indiana Middle School Threatened by Contamination

April 29, 2007 - A metal coatings company has known for two years that dangerous chemicals have polluted soil and groundwater 200 feet from Memorial Park Middle School grounds but has not started a cleanup.

Wayne Metal Protection discovered a plume of tetrachloroethylene in the soil and groundwater beneath its facility at 1511 Wabash Ave., in September 2004 and reported the pollution to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Later investigations by the company found other pollutants either on or around the site, including trichloroethylene, cyanide, arsenic, lead and chromium, according to IDEM documents.

More . . .

Ohio Homes Checked for Contamination

April 27, 2007 - DAYTON — Delphi Corp. is contacting the owners of 15 homes near its Home Avenue plant to see if possible contamination has spread from an area where tanks once held industrial chemicals.

"Vapors from some of the chemical residues found at the Delphi site have apparently moved into parts of the neighborhood through the ground," Delphi spokesman Lindsey Williams said in an e-mail to the Dayton Daily News.

More . . .

EPA Searching for Toxic Asbestos Contamination in Salt Lake City

April 26, 2007 - Is there toxic asbestos contamination in your yard? The Environmental Protection Agency wants to find out. The agency needs people to help out if they are familiar with two old processing sites in downtown Salt Lake City.

Twenty years ago a company called Intermountain Products made insulation from vermiculite in that building. There was asbestos in the vermiculite, and the EPA wants to find out if anyone knows whether any of the toxic mineral was carried off site.

More . . .

New York Considers Cancer Cluster Study Victor

April 25, 2007 - The state Department of Health is weighing a request that it conduct a cancer cluster study in a part of Victor beset with contaminated groundwater.

The request for a cancer study, passed on to Albany last week by state Sen. Michael Nozzolio, originated with a Victor citizens group that is pressing for more answers on the health impact of the contamination. The group’s agenda also includes a better explanation of the results of recent testing for the presence of toxic vapors in Victor homes.

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Uncovering what lurks below

April 24, 2007 - Consumer Reports - I won't bore you with too many details, but you can buy a detailed environmental report on a property you’re buying or selling, which the company generates from its databases of municipal, county, state, and federal records. A report ($150 for a residential property) includes information on the presence of red flags such as EPA Superfund sites (like the Bowers Landfill in Pickaway County, Ohio, shown here; the location was remediated into wetlands), hazardous-waste sites, and leaking underground oil tanks on or near the property.

More . . .

Largest Well in Dover, NH Could be Contaminated with Cancer-Causing Gasoline Additives

April 25, 2007 - DOVER, N.H. (AP) _ The state says the largest well in Dover (New Hampshire) could be contaminated with potentially cancer-causing gasoline additives if officials don't act soon.

The well provides more than 1 (m) million gallons a day for residents.

More . . .

Government to Buy Homes from Residents on MO Superfund Site

April 24, 2007 - Uncle Sam has agreed to purchase the homes in the 40-square-mile Tar Creek Superfund Site on a voluntary basis, but there has been a problem with some of the appraisals. They were too low for owners to buy decent housing elsewhere.

So the procedure has been slowed down to make corrections, much to the consternation of people who have already bought homes and are awaiting appraisals for the buyout.

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Research Finds Homeowners Plagued by Thousands of Leaking Underground Oil Tanks

April 24, 2007 - Research released today byEnvironmental Data Resources, Inc. (EDR) shows more than 400,000 leakingunderground storage tanks and more than 1,000,000 incidents of propertieswith known hazardous contamination spills have been reported in government records, all of which pose a serious health threat to residents nationwide.

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3 Towns Draft Well Testing Laws in NY

April 24, 2007 - WAPPINGERS FALLS - Three southern Dutchess towns are crafting laws to require well testing.

"This is a health issue," Wappinger Supervisor Joseph Ruggiero said.

"In neighborhoods all around Dutchess County, private wells aren't being tested," he said. "There is no knowledge of the status of those wells."

Each of the three towns is drafting a law mandating testing wells for contamination at the time the home is being sold. The property seller would pay for the test.

A comprehensive well-water test through a certified lab can cost about $500, depending on a number of factors.

More . . .

Buried Tanks a Leaky Danger in Michigan

April 24, 2007 - Fuels contaminate state's soil; 9,100 sites need cleanup
The water that flows from the well at the Dimitrov family home in Oakland County is hard with iron and tastes lousy.

So the site of the former Bi-Rite gas station a few yards away, where underground gasoline tanks once leaked, is just one more reason to avoid it.

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Underground Contamination Affects Everyone in Madison, WI

April 23, 2007 - ethane gas and groundwater pollutants still leak from old city landfills, industrial carcinogens from long-gone factories are showing up in our wells, and all manner of buried hazardous materials await developers when they seek to build on city lots.

This buried history affects everyone, from taxpayers to businesses and builders.

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Parents ask about threat to children from arsenic in Maryland Park

April 23, 2007 - Could exposure to arsenic contribute to medical conditions such as chronic asthma, bronchitis or sleep apnea? Could high school football players pounding on contaminated dirt six days a week in practice, then eating sunflower seeds out of their dirty hands, have ingested enough of the poisonous chemical to worry about unforeseen health consequences?

Those were some of the questions raised yesterday afternoon at Digital Harbor High School, where about 25 people attended an informational meeting on the closing of South Baltimore's Swann Park because of arsenic contamination in the soil.

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Debra Hall Wins 2007 Environmental Quality Award

April 23, 2007 - When the federal Environmental Protection Agency named Hopewell Junction resident Debra Hall for its top award, it was in recognition of her four years of work to protect the environmental quality of her community.

The award is the highest recognition presented to the public by the EPA. Hall is being honored for her work with the Hopewell Junction Citizens for Clean Water and Clean Air.

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Worried Sick in Massachusetts

April 22, 2007 - Steve DaRosa wonders: Could his hair loss and his father's cancer have been caused by the toxic ash that was for years dumped across the street and subsequently spread over portions of adjacent land to make way for the high school? What about his 16-year-old daughter, who spends her days at a school still tainted with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), lead and other hazardous materials, then returns home, where soil samples taken from their yard have revealed the same contamination?

Steve DaRosa wonders, and he's not alone.

More . . .

Underground Storage Tanks a Major Concern in North Carolina

April 21, 2007 - For decades, many homeowners have relied on heating oil to keep warm during colder weather. Many still do. Tens of thousands of underground storage tanks (USTs) are buried on residential properties across North Carolina. The majority of these USTs are no longer in use, having been forgotten when natural gas was made available to the homeowner.

The tanks, frequently still storing oil, were just left in place to rust away. In addition, many USTs have leaked for years while in use.

More . . .

More Maryland Homes Contaminated by Leak at Gas Station

April 20, 2007 - A week after one property near the Green Valley Citgo on Fingerboard Road tested positive for water contamination, two others have been found with methyl-tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, in their groundwater.

Among those affected are Mellissa and Sam Ayala, who paid an independent contractor to test their water supply after learning last week that a neighbor's property had been contaminated with MTBE.

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Federal Government has adopted regulations that will dramatically roll back Americans' right to know about chemical hazards in their neighborhoods

Rollback Will Hide Data on 600,000 Pounds of Toxic Chemicals in California

The Bush Administration has adopted regulations that will dramatically roll back Americans' right to know about chemical hazards in their neighborhoods, allowing California industries to handle almost 600,000 pounds of toxic chemicals a year without telling the public, according to an investigation of federal data by Environmental Working Group (EWG).

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Neighborhood Contaminated by Residential Oil Leak

April 19, 2007 - Local officials have intervened on behalf of Rumson homeowners whose properties are contaminated as a result of a home-heating oil spill on an adjacent property.

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Kalamazoo Residents Protest PCB Dump

April 18, 2007 - "Our position continues to be no more waste dumped in this community," said Kalmazoo City Commissioner Dan Cooney, "and we want the toxic waste that is in there now out of this community."

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Texas Families Horrified by Toxic Waste Under Their Yards

April 12, 2007 - Two feet below the inviting backyard was a sludge pit bubbling toxic waste

John and Kimberly Brooks bought their home in February 1997 for $182,500. With plans to start a family, they fell in love with the lot's huge backyard. Years later, they learned about the unlined sludge pit bubbling toxic waste residue less than two feet below.

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New Legislation Would Restore Superfund Polluter Fees

April 18, 2007 - "The fact that one in four Americans live within three miles of a Superfund site is a clear indicator that the clean-up program is lagging and in desperate need of a significant funding increase," Hinchey said. "Reinstituting the Superfund fees would give a real shot in the arm to clean-up efforts while shifting the financial burden of toxic cleanups away from taxpayers and towards those responsible for these hazardous sites."

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Wells Contaminated with Arsenic in Sweet Home Oregon

April 17, 2007 - Public concerns about high levels of arsenic in well water have prompted a recent and continuing testing program in the area around Sweet Home, Ore., and may raise a warning flag for other areas of the state that could also face problems with this toxin due to geology or land use practices.

In a recent round of testing done near Sweet Home, almost one-fourth of the well water samples showed levels of arsenic now considered unsafe by EPA standards.

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Many Don't Know They are Living Near a Superfund Site in Indiana Town

April 16, 2007 - Health Department employees have received responses from people who didn't know they were buying property close to some polluted sites.

"A lot of people (selling property) don't disclose they are living next to a Superfund site," he said.

More . . .

Coal Tar May Affect Property Values in New Hampshire

April 16, 2007 - A proposal to contain the coal tar toxin that lies under a section of Liberty Hill may significantly reduce clean-up costs but it could also have an effect on property values, according to real estate experts.

Real Estate agent Doug Embree, for Century 21, said that if the coal tar is to remain in the ground it is likely to have an effect on homeowners living in the immediate Liberty Hill Road area.

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Maryland Knew About Water Contamination

More about the water contamination in Maryland:

April 16, 2007 - MONROVIA, Md. (AP) - Although residents only recently found out about water contamination near a gas station, state environmental officials have known about it since 2004.

The contamination from the Green Valley Citgo has spread to the water supply of at least one owner, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

More . . .

State Aware Of Water Contamination Since 2004 - Never Told Residents

April 15, 2007 - (AP) MONROVIA, Md. Although residents only recently found out about water contamination near a gas station, state environmental
officials have known about it since 2004.

The contamination from the Green Valley Citgo has spread to the water supply of at least one owner, according to the Maryland Department of the Environment.

More . . .

Victor Vapor Data Shows no "huge alarm for neighborhood"

Must be comforting for the residents to be told there's no cause for "huge alarm."

(April 14, 2007) — State officials Friday released detailed data that they say supports the claim that residents in western Victor shouldn't be overly concerned about vapors wafting into homes from a contaminated site.

"There's not a huge alarm for the neighborhood as a whole with regards to vapor intrusion (into homes)," said state Department of Health public health specialist Krista Anders. More . . .

Minorities Bear Greater Toxic Burden

April 12, 2007 - California has the nation's highest concentration of minorities living near hazardous waste facilities, according to a newly released study. Greater Los Angeles tops the nation with 1.2 million people living less than two miles from 17 such facilities, and 91% of them, or 1.1 million, are minorities. Statewide the figure was 81%.

Though about one-third of U.S. residents are nonwhite, more than half of the people living near such facilities were Latino, African American or Asian American, according to the report.

More . . .http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-toxic12apr12,0,4408158.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Illinois Residents Learn of Lead Contamination

Despite this article's headline, I'm not sure how this information will releave the resident's fears.

April 12, 2007 - ABINGDON - Phyllis Worthington said two words after she picked up the newspaper April 3.

"I said 'Oh' and another word you can't print in the newspaper when I saw they were testing for lead in my neighborhood," Worthington said as she stood in Abingdon High School's cafeteria Wednesday. More . . .

130 of 188 Wells Contaminated in PA Town

April 12, 2007 - SLOCUM TWP. — He stopped drinking his own tap water four years ago. He has worried about the health of his wife and son since their blood was tested in 2002.

Neither situation will likely change any time soon for Joe Dombroski, as a lead contamination near his Slocum Road home is investigated by the state Department of Environmental Protection and the source of the contamination is still unknown.

More . . .

Army Agrees to Testing at Fort Lewis

This is good news, but I still wonder why it took five years for them to agree to test.

Here's the article:

April 12, 2007 - FORT LEWIS, Wash. — In a quick turnabout following a published report, the Army has had a change of heart and now plans to test the air in homes at Fort Lewis.
More . . .

Residents within half mile of gas station notified of contamination

April 10, 2007 - The Maryland Department of the Environment has found contamination in a well at a Monrovia gas station, the Frederick County Health Department announced Tuesday. More . . .

PA residents fear further contamination

April 10, 2007
A developer's plan to build 268 homes in Hilltown Township has sparked new concerns about an old problem with a pesky, dangerous chemical lurking under the ground in that part of Bucks County.

The problem: a plume of groundwater contamination that has plagued homeowners' drinking wells near Routes 313 and 113 in Hilltown and Bedminster townships since 1999. More . . .

Residents at Tar Creek Superfund Site told that appraisals halted after values of homes appeared to be too low

April 10, 2007
PICHER, Okla. — Residents living in the Tar Creek Superfund Site were told Monday that new appraisals were halted after values on some homes appeared to be too low.

About 200 people filled the Picher-Cardin High School Commons for a meeting of the Lead-Impacted Communities Relocation Assistance Trust, after word of the numbers spread throughout the Ottawa County community over the weekend. More . . .

Despite years of EPA urging military won't test for dangerous vapors in Fort Lewis housing

If true, this story is completely outragious. If there is any chance at all (which there clearly is) that our soldiers and their families are being exposed to toxic vapors, then why wouldn't they test the air quality? With all the money being spent on other things, you would think protecting these families who are already sacrificing so much would be a priority.

Here's the article:

April 9, 2007
Plumes of contaminated underground water could be releasing dangerous vapors into family homes at Fort Lewis. But despite years of urging from the Environmental Protection Agency, the military has not tested the housing for toxic gas, nor has it warned the hundreds of soldiers, spouses and children who have occupied the dwellings that they could be at risk.

For at least five years, military officials have known of the possible seepage of trichloroethylene vapors from groundwater near and under the homes in the fort's Madigan Army Medical Center housing area, according to interviews and government documents obtained by the Seattle P-I. More . . .

Decline in male births in U.S. and Japan may be caused by contamination

This is one of those cases where if you happen to be watching the news on a specific topic you begin to see trends.

Over the past several years I've read several articles about the possible connection between exposure to certain pollutants and lower male birth rates. This includes stories of entire communities that are in close proximity to certain types of industry or contamination that are experiencing very low male birth rates.

These are just a few of the articles:

• 09-Apr-2007 - Pollution: Where have all the baby boys gone?
• 18-Sep-2005 - Study: Fewer boys near chemical plants
• 18-Jul-2005 - Examining Environmental Factors in Sex Ratio
• 27-Apr-2007 - Pollutant affects sex chromosome
• 10-May-2006 - Sex-bending chemicals meddling with evolution
• 05-May-2000 - Where the boys aren't: Industrial nations puzzle over decline in male birth ratio.
• 24-May-2000 - DECLINING MALE BIRTHRATE BAFFLING SCIENTISTS
• 01-Mar-2003 - PCBs'' legacy: fewer boys. (Endocrine Disruptions).
• 01-Jan-2002 - Where the Boys Aren't: Dioxin and the Sex Ratio.

It makes you wonder if the problem will end up being the solution to the problem . . .

Here's the most recent article:

A study published in this week’s online edition of Environmental Health Perspectives reports that during the past thirty years, the number of male births has decreased each year in the U.S. and Japan. In a review of all births in both countries, the University of Pittsburgh-led study found significantly fewer boys being born relative to girls in the U.S. and Japan, and that an increasing proportion of fetuses that die are male. They note that the decline in births is equivalent to 135,000 fewer white males in the U.S. and 127,000 fewer males in Japan over the past three decades and suggest that environmental factors are one explanation for these trends.

“The pattern of decline in the ratio of male to female births remains largely unexplained,” said Devra Lee Davis, Ph.D., M.P.H., lead investigator of the study, director of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute’s Center for Environmental Oncology and professor of epidemiology, University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health. “We know that men who work with some solvents, metals and pesticides father fewer baby boys. We also know that nutritional factors, physical health and chemical exposures of pregnant women affect their ability to have children and the health of their offspring. We suspect that some combination of these factors, along with older age of parents, may account for decreasing male births.” More . . .

Cancer rates high around chemical plants

Friday, April 06, 2007

If you lived within two miles of the old, downtown Salt Lake City vermiculite plants, your chances of getting lung cancer were about 50 percent higher than if you had lived somewhere else in the state.

That's the finding of a study begun six years ago on the health impacts of two plants that for more than four decades processed vermiculite, a home insulation and soil additive that used to be wildly popular until it became known it contained dangerous levels of highly toxic asbestos.

More . . .

Contaminated Wells in Indiana

NILES -- State environmental workers are hoping to uncover more information about a chemical that surfaced in the drinking water supply near a former Milton Township landfill last year. More . . .

Landfill Impacts Home Owners 2 Miles Away

It looks like a benign, if not massive, bump on a flat stretch of road in DuPage County.

For 25 years, Mallard Lake landfill near Bloomingdale was where much of the area's trash was stashed.

Towering and immense, the former dump is covered with a blanket of grass. But beneath the surface, homeowners two miles away allege, was a toxic stew seeping toward and contaminating their wells.

More . . .

Concerned Citizens Put Up a Billboard

A billboard erected on M-46 is designed to drive home a demand to remove contamination buried at the 54-acre Velsicol Chemical site in St. Louis.

More . . .

A River of Mercury in CT

(Killingly-WTNH) _ The giant mercury spill was discovered in Killingly this past weekend on Putnam Road.

As soon as the spill was discovered, the DEP got to work, cleaning up the 50-pounds of mercury. When crews returned a few days later, they found that the contamination had continued.

More . . .

Homeowners ban together against water contamination

Their water is contaminated and they want something done about it. Some homeowners in Victor are organizing a group to make sure they're concerns are not "brushed aside" by elected officials. Tuesday, News 10NBC spoke with a former Victor resident who lived in one of the contaminated homes and now wants to help his former neighbors.

More . . .

Guaranteed Property Inspection Launches Neighborhood Environmental Report

Guaranteed Property Inspection and Mold Investigation Inc., an industry leader in home inspection / environmental services, and Environmental Data Resources, Inc. (EDR), the leading national provider of environmental risk information, jointly announced today that they will offer their Neighborhood Environmental Report™ to residential real estate markets in Southern California. The report is being offered to meet growing demand for pre-purchase information for real estate agents, loan brokers, home-buyers and home sellers.

More . . .

Victory, NY Residents Wait for Answers on Vapor Intrusion

April 3, 2007 - The well water contamination in a section of Victor is nothing new. The Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) warned residents about it back in the 90's.

What is new is the trichloroethene (TCE) vapor intrusion that is making its way into houses in the plume area.

More . . .

Neighbors Wait 4 Years for Oil Cleanup

April 3, 2007 - RUMSON — All that Danielle Shea would like to do is plant a lawn in her backyard and put up a basketball backboard and hoop for her son.

For the past four years, she has been unable to do either, because her family and her next-door neighbors have been waiting for fuel oil contamination from the property behind theirs to be cleaned up.

More . . .

Chromium Six in Riverside California

The rumbling on the northern edge of downtown Riverside wasn't an earthquake, as some residents first thought. Mostly, they said, because it didn't stop.

Contractors for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency are drilling wells as deep as 130 feet below the surface to determine the extent of pollution from a little-known Superfund site in the city.

More . . .

Are Capped Contaminated Sites Safe?

This is a good article from New Jersey that addresses an extremely important question: are sites that are deemed remediated really safe? I think most people have no idea what it means when they are told a contaminated site has been remediated or cleand up.

Here's the article:
Condos in Edgewater. High-rises in North Bergen. Schools in Paterson.

All sitting atop toxic chemicals.

Separated, in most cases, by a few feet of dirt, inches of asphalt or a thin plastic liner.

In North Jersey, this is the new definition of clean: Thousands of people living, working and playing on properties where pollution has been "capped" -- buried under pavement or dirt rather than removed. More . . .

One Ohio Gas Station to be Cleaned . . . Several Hundred to Go

The "potential mess" is what prevents abandoned gas stations from being redeveloped, said Peter Chace, chief of the state Bureau of Underground Storage Tank Regulations.

BUSTR figures Ohio has several hundred such stations, along with 23,500 active and registered underground tanks.

"You simply don't know what's down there," Chace said, noting that cleanup is "a roll of the dice. It could be $30,000 or it could be a half a million." More . . .

Possible Cancer Clusters in PA

Here's an article calling on state government agencies in Pennsylvania to be more proactive in connecting the dots on possible cancer clusters near a hazardous waste site.

"Rep. Mark Cohen, D-Phila delphia, is correct in de ducing that there's a need for the state to respond to public concerns about possible cancer clusters in a more "proactive" fashion.

In the wake of The Patriot-News' reports of a seemingly large number of cancers among Susquehanna University alumni who lived off-campus near a former hazardous-waste site in Selinsgrove, we were surprised to find what can best be described as a dismissive mind-set among authorities with regard to such reports. " More . . .

Contaminated Wells in Illinois

"Tyanna Cannata and Joe Anderson have never met but they share a frightening memory.

Cannata, of DuPage County, and Anderson, a Lake County resident, own homes near controversial garbage dumps.

Both were shocked when they learned their wells and those of their neighbors contained vinyl chloride, a solvent often associated with landfills." More . . .