Saturday, June 30, 2007
Long Island Residents Were Never Told about the Huge Toxic Plume Under Their Homes
At a sometimes raucous meeting at Adelphi University, residents from the villages of Hempstead and Garden City lambasted state officials for failing to expedite the cleanup of a site that has spawned a 4,000-foot-long plume through a residential area and created potential exposure pathways to homes, apartments, parks and office buildings. Despite residents' skepticism, officials said they were aware of no direct exposure to the toxins that presented a human health threat.
Dawn Anderson, a real estate agent whose home sits dead center on the plume, said the first she'd even heard about the site was on a TV broadcast Thursday, despite living in her home for 36 years. "Finding this out today was very distressing," she said, noting that she had survived breast cancer and is raising a 16-year-old son in the home.
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The Terrible Plight of Mission Texas
As the bus set forth at 5:30 a.m. on May 2, residents hoped this time would be different. They were traveling to Austin to ask lawmakers for a resolution encouraging the Texas Supreme Court to decide a case that has languished since 1999. The mass toxic tort is against Hayes-Sammons Chemical Co. and a slew of other big firms affiliated with the processing facility and a large warehouse a half-mile away. Federal and state environmental agencies have found significant contamination at both sites, but a jury has yet to hear arguments in the case while the court works through legal technicalities. In the meantime, plaintiffs have died waiting for the trial.
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Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Years later, chemical plant neighbors in Georgia find closure
The lingering taint from the plant made it impossible for people like Linda and Bo Miller to sell.
They were among about 200 plaintiffs who joined in a civil lawsuit against the company that ended with a $25 million out-of-court settlement.Last week, the Millers got a check for $101,000.
The payout is the final chapter in the Miller's saga related to the now-shuttered plant on Ross Road, just north of the city line. Bo Miller worked at the Linden Chemicals and Plastics plant for 34 years, from 1955 to 1989. For nearly as long, they've lived in the same house just two miles from the plant site, on Shore Drive along Yellow Bluff Creek.
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Arsenic contamination in Florida wells
State environmental authorities are providing the owners of the affected wells with alternative water supplies. Although arsenic levels in the wells are above federal water quality standards, state officials say there is no reason for alarm.
"I think the arsenic numbers, the kind of exposure we're talking about, is not enough to cause an immediate health impact," said Bill Kutash, an official with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection's Southwest District.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Arsenic contamination in groundwater may be cause of elevated cancer rates in Buck county, PA
The word “cancer” was hardly ever mentioned. But arsenic in drinking water does cause cancer.
“We now have strong evidence that it causes bladder cancer, it causes skin cancer, it causes lung cancer, and there is suggestive evidence that it causes kidney cancer,” said Dr. Kenneth Cantor, of the National Cancer Institute, one of the nation's foremost researchers into the links between environmental contaminants and cancer.
Another unsettling fact also has gone unmentioned:
Bucks County has a significantly higher rate of bladder cancer than expected — about 23 percent higher for men and 27 percent higher for women, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
Mississippi residents fear carcinogen in soil despite cleanup
And their persistent pleas to City Hall caused a tumultuous last week in city government, leaving officials promising to conduct a new round of testing in the neighborhood.
Friday, June 22, 2007
South Carolina Lags in Leaking Tank Cleanup
But federal regulators say that's only a fraction of what's needed to clean an estimated 3,200 sites statewide.
The leaking tanks can pollute wells and about $1 million state residents get their water from groundwater.
The state gets about $17 million a year from gas taxes for the work. But regulators say twice that much is needed to clean the sites.
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State officials knew about lead contamination in Alabama community for three years before telling residents
Apparently, soil samples collected more than three years ago by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management showed high levels of lead and other metals in foundry sand scattered inside and outside the abandoned Lincoln Metals Corporation/Heartland Faucet site at 248 Foundry Lane.
Even though documents obtained by The Daily Home show that ADEM knew more than three years ago that there were high levels of lead contamination in the small Lincoln community, it failed to notify residents in that community or Lincoln city officials about the piles of hazardous waste.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Greensboro, North Carolina Park Closed Due to Soil and Ground Water Contamination
Workers discovered an odor while grading for new construction. The soil in question was set aside and covered with plastic. Samples found toxins in soil and groundwater, including hydrocarbons and heavy metals like lead and mercury"
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Interview with Dr. Michael Gros, a victim of water contamination at US Marine base
The contaminants, TCE (trichloroethylene) and PCE (tetrachloroethelene, also called perchloroethylene), are both labeled probable carcinogens by the Environmental Protection Agency. In 1985, when 10 water wells were eventually shut down, TCE levels recorded in one well were nearly 4,000 times the level considered safe.
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Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Rhode Island Neighborhood Trapped by Pollution
This is Gail Corvello’s nightmare, and it unfolds every day in a neighborhood that looks like any other to an outsider, with tidy homes and lawns sloping down to Mount Hope Bay.
Yesterday morning, Corvello stood outside her Bay Street house, which doubles as a daycare center, and ushered four young children, ages 2 through 5, outside into the brilliant sunshine.
It was nearly five years ago that construction crews installing a sewer line on Bay Street dug up the telltale blue soil that would change the lives of Corvello and some 250 people in this working-class slice of North Tiverton, just beyond the Fall River line.
Monday, June 18, 2007
Dutchess County NY residents debate well testing laws
Residents complained about the mechanism used to implement mandatory well-testing – requiring it to be conducted prior to any home being sold.
Joe Pettinella, an East Fishkill resident and president of the Dutchess County Association of Realtors, also claimed that this “will cause significant hardship to buyer and seller at a time of physical, mental, and emotional vulnerability,” and moved that it be made mandatory for all homes, not just ones in transition of sale.
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Residents concerned that Habitat for Humanity development in Florida may have been built on contaminated land
Seven years later, Ms. Zeigler is one of more than 50 Fairway Oaks homeowners who have problems with their houses and say they fear that the blitz construction was shoddy and that their land, adjacent to two former town dumps, is unstable or contaminated.
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Upscale Florida condo built on former Superfund site
June 16, 2007 - By location alone, Biscayne Landing seems a developer's dream.
Nearly 200 open, bayside acres. Sweeping ocean views. State park on one side, university campus on the other. Close to downtown Miami and the glamour of South Beach.
Except it's on top of a dump.
Biscayne Landing's high-end condos and shops are rising atop the old Munisport landfill, which spent 17 years on the list of the nation's most polluted places. Now the first trickle of a projected 15,000 people are moving into what ranks as one of the largest residential projects ever planned on a former Superfund site.
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Saturday, June 16, 2007
80 Michigan families impacted by ground and water contamination from nearby landfill
That’s been the case for the Town of Pines resident for the past three years, as she and around 80 other town residents await the day when they’ll be hooked up to city water.
Richardson, 55, said she hopes that day comes soon, as she’s tired of washing her fruits and vegetables with the jugs of water that arrive at her home every two weeks.
However, what she heard at a meeting Thursday, in which residents were updated on the testing of groundwater and soil for contaminants from a nearby coal ash landfill, wasn’t cause for much optimism.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Over 1 million Americans in toxic chemical's path
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Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Thousands of Marines and their families exposed to toxins for years from drinking water on base
Results of a new study of the base's water were released Tuesday, the same day lawmakers heard emotional testimony from families who were affected by the water, which contained 40 times the amount of toxins considered safe by today's standards.
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New Hampshire residents shocked and dismayed by contamination near their homes
The father of a 3-week-old baby girl, Silva said he was shocked and dismayed at the news of the massive lead paint dumping so close to the home he built only three years ago.
Although his was not one of eight families notified about the contamination, Silva said he needs to learn more about what lies so near his home. He is especially concerned about airborne particles and groundwater contamination.
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Alabama state officials new about contamination 3 years ago, but nobody told residents
“They should have informed us about that,” said Sidney Fomby Jr., 61, of Lincoln. “They should have let the whole city of Lincoln know. My grandkids have played down by it.”
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Oregon officials expand testing for toxic fumes rising into homes from contaminated groundwater
The agency had earlier found fumes rising up in the crawl spaces of eight nearby homes from a hazardous industrial solvent in the groundwater.
Many members of the neighborhood wanted testing but dozens of nearby homes will remain untested. The DEQ said further testing could be warranted based on the results of the 30 homes.
The groundwater was fouled by a century of spills of industrial degreaser at the railyard along the northern boundary of the neighborhood. A broad plume of the contaminated groundwater persists under homes in the Trainsong and River Road neighborhoods.
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Mississippi Residents Protest Ground Contamination
The residents, who are embroiled in a battle over creosote contamination on the 16th Section land they rent from the school district, said the school district failed to notify them of the environmental contamination although the district was involved in a lawsuit for more than 10 years.
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Sunday, June 10, 2007
Work begins on 40 Massachusetts homes to protect residents from contamination
These homes sit on or near a three-quarter-mile long plume of groundwater contaminated by the old Nyanza factory, which operated from 1917 to 1978, according to the EPA. Several commercial buildings also are affected by the pollution.
An EPA risk assessment announced last year found that people who breathe air contaminated by the vapors from Nyanza for 30 years may have an increased risk of developing cancer.
More . . .Friday, June 8, 2007
18 Sick Illinois Residents Sue Over Groundwater Contamination
She made it to the kitchen before she started throwing up blood, and her husband called an ambulance after finding her passed out from blood loss. Doctors diagnosed her with advanced cirrhosis, but could not determine a cause – Suchor does not drink, and has never contracted hepatitis, the two most common causes.
Seven years and a liver transplant later, Suchor, 69, now blames groundwater contamination from three Ringwood manufacturers that a Philadelphia attorney has sued on behalf of 17 other people.
But her lawsuit, filed Thursday in a Philadelphia court, is unique among the 18 filed against the manufacturers. The other lawsuits are from people who claim that they contracted brain and nerve cancers from contaminated groundwater.
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North Carolina Residents Confused and Concerned Over Water Contamination
"I thought we had good water all along, and then 'bam,' all of a sudden, you don't know what you got," said Tony Barnes, who gets his water from Davidson Water.
On Wednesday, FOX8 reported that over the past several months, elevated levels of lead were discovered in several homes in the county as well as West Davidson High School.
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Thursday, June 7, 2007
NY Bill Forces Landlords to Disclose Pollution
A similar measure was vetoed by Gov. George E. Pataki in August.
The bill's authors, Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, D-Endwell, and Sen. Thomas W. Libous, R-Binghamton, expect Gov. Eliot Spitzer to sign it.
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Wednesday, June 6, 2007
10 Million Gallons of Toxic Gunk Oozing Up From Brooklyn Aquifer
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Tuesday, June 5, 2007
Home Inspection Firm Offers Environmental Reports
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Contaminated wells in Oregon
Though a relative newcomer to the area, Marla McClean welcomed a checkup of her well water last week by Department of Environmental Quality hydrogeologist Audrey Eldridge and water sampling technician Michael Tichenor. McClean and her husband moved to their home on nearly an acre of land along Beacon Drive, north of Santa Clara, from Winnemucca, Nev., in late 2005.
"The water was so badly contaminated in some hot spots there that the water from some wells was undrinkable," she said. "Ours was not, but we still participated in the monitoring."
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How to find out if the home you are considering buying was once a meth lab
"The problem is that for every pound of meth, 5 pounds of toxic waste are produced," said Joe McGurck, spokesperson of Environmental Data Resources, a company that offers environmental reports based on public databases. "These guys aren't good guys, they aren't taking it down to the toxic waste dump. They're dumping it in the backyard."
So what's a homeowner, landlord or property manager to do? "A lot of companies run criminal background checks," says Tanforan, although his company currently does not. "But there's no real way to screen for this kind of thing."
The state also maintains a database of discovered meth labs from all drug enforcement agencies that which potential homeowners can search, but if homeowners are interested in both their home and their neighbors, ordering an Environmental Data Resources report may prove easier and more edifying (because it explains the data and searches within an one-eighth of a mile of a given property.
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Sunday, June 3, 2007
Could Your Home be a Former Meth Lab?
No one told her a methamphetamine lab was found in that house less than two years earlier. By law, no one had to.
"After we moved in, the neighbors were telling my kids that this used to be a drug house, but I didn't know what to think," Mobley said.
She was given proof of the fact when she was approached by a Journal reporter, who found her address at 1311 W. Sixth St. on the Drug Enforcement Agency's National Clandestine Laboratory Register.
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