Third toxic site found in Brighton, New York

March 24, 2008 - A third toxic site in Brighton has been found by the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The DEC recently announced that 235 Metro Park — which is sandwiched between East and West Henrietta roads and Brighton-Henrietta Town Line Road to the south —tested positive for traces of tetrachloroethene (PCE) and trichloroethene (TCE).

The state’s biggest concern at the site is soil vapor intrusion, which happens when a toxin moves from the soil to the indoor air of buildings. Air quality equipment has been installed at the other two toxic sites to address the same problem.

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Virginia landfill added to EPA Superfund list

March 21, 2008 - It has been almost 20 years since toxic chemicals were discovered in residential wells surrounding the Hidden Lane landfill, but residents of the Broad Run Farms community might finally get some answers soon, as the site was listed this week on the federal list of the most hazardous waste sites in the country.

Carcinogen trichloroethylene was discovered in wells surrounding the Hidden Lane landfill in 1988. Hidden Lane, an unlined landfill, was closed by the county in 1984. Testing in the Broad Run Farms community north of Rt. 7, which borders the landfill first began five years after the closing when local residents complained about the site. By 2005, 67 wells had been tested and 25 that tested positive for contamination had water filtration systems installed with help from the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

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Toxic discovery at Tacoma, Washington home

March 19, 2008 - TACOMA, Wash. - A Tacoma house has been sealed off and the children who lived there are slowly recovering after high levels of lead were found on the property.

John and Heather Jones, who were renting the home, were prepared to move out the minute they were told the property was contaminated. They could never have been prepared what happened next: Their children were diagnosed with lead poisoning.

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Philadelphia site added to Superfund list

March 19, 2008 - The Chem-Fab site on North Broad Street in Doylestown has been added to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund list for cleanup.

The EPA announced Wednesday that the former electroplating facility and metal processing plant was added to the list of places nationwide where conditions could pose a threat to the environment or public health.

Adding Chem-Fab to the list clears up uncertainty about who pays for the cleanup. Though the federal agency now plans to oversee the process, the people deemed responsible for the contamination are expected to foot the bill, said EPA spokesman Roy Seneca. If that doesn’t pan out, the EPA covers the cost.

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Meth Lab Residue in Homes Triggers Litigation

March 17, 2008 - Lawsuits over contaminated homes focus on failure to disclose issue

First it was toxic mold. Now it's meth residue.

Property owners are battling a new breed of lawsuits, in which people who unwittingly bought homes that were once methamphetamine labs are suing over contaminated houses that are making them sick.

The lawsuits are fallout from the massive federal crackdown on meth labs during the past decade, which saw more than 100,000 labs busted, leaving behind thousands of polluted homes and apartments for unsuspecting residents to fill.

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U.S. EPA issues Order to investigate chromium contamination in Glendale, California

March 14, 2008 - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ordered a Glendale, Calif. business to conduct a soil and groundwater investigation for hexavalent chromium contamination at the 718 West Wilson Avenue property.

The Wilson Avenue property is part of the former Drilube Company site, located within the San Fernando Valley Area 2 Superfund Site. Between 1945 – 2004, the Drilube Company operated an aerospace and aircraft plating, painting and metal finishing operation which used hazardous substances including chromic acid, muriatic acid, nickel compounds, sodium hydroxide, ammonium hydroxide, caustic potash, and sulfuric acid.

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Queens, New York Residents Protest Toxic Schools

March 13, 2008 - Advocates and community members gathered Tuesday in front of State Senator Frank Padavan’s Bellerose office to protest his lax legislation concerning environmentally contaminated school sites and to announce a leafleting campaign to educate constituents in Padavan’s district about the issue.

School sites leased by the City do not require the same type of community, political and environmental review processes as schools owned by the City. This loophole allows for schools to be located on contaminated sites posing health threats to children, according to the organization.

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North Carolina: A right to know, a responsibility to act

March 9, 2008 - One by one, North Carolina communities are learning about the vulnerability of those who trust in the safety of the groundwater they use and officials who must protect their health and safety.

The Observer’s recent series on well contamination is perhaps the most comprehensive picture of the vulnerability of one county’s well users ever drawn out of agency files and into the public eye. From the failure to disclose contamination, to letting polluters off the hook for cleanups, to underfunded staff and programs for testing and monitoring, the experience of each impacted neighborhood shows how little protection current laws provide.

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Cancer survey slated for Ohio neighborhood

March 11, 2008 - Public Health Dayton & Montgomery County is launching a cancer incidence survey among residents near the Behr Dayton Thermal Products plant, where groundwater pollution has prompted regulatory action to address indoor air quality.

Mark Case, director of environmental health for the agency, said Monday, March 10, that the survey could take up to a year and is being conducted with the Ohio Department of Health.

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Costly taxpayer-financed plans to address toxic-chemical contamination in residential pockets of northeast Rochester and central Brighton, NY

March 10, 2008 - The state Department of Environmental Conservation has scheduled a meeting for Tuesday evening to discuss a $1 million proposal to remove tainted soil and take other steps to address contamination at a now-closed business at Fernwood and Portland avenues in northeast Rochester.

The DEC first learned in 2000 that Preferred Electric Motors had spilled solvents and other potentially harmful materials in the course of its work refurbishing electric motors. Trichloroethene (TCE), tetrachloroethene (PCE) and other solvents are contaminating groundwater near the former business, prompting the state to install ventilation systems in two homes to guard against the build-up of toxic vapors.

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The Link Between Obesity, Cancer, and Toxicity

March 10, 2008 - Studies of cancerous breast tumors have shown elevated concentrations of these toxic man-made chemicals, including parabens found in deodorants and antiperspirants.

Other studies of large groups of people have attempted to find lifestyle and demographic factors connecting obesity and toxicity. These studies are called ‘epidemiological’ studies because they look for trends in disease among members of a large population. A major study showed that living near a hazardous waste site increases the risk of being hospitalized for diabetes. The most influential risk factor for diabetes is obesity. As one would expect, diabetics are at increased risk to be obese, especially as teens.

To complete this unholy triad scientifically, several studies have shown that obese people have high levels of toxins stored in their fatty tissue. The theory resulting from this academic work is that the body is using fatty tissue, which has a relatively low level of metabolic activity, as a place to store the toxins away from the body tissues that have high levels of metabolic activity, such as blood, organs, and muscle. In effect, body fat becomes a storehouse of toxins in an attempt to “firewall” the body from toxicity.

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A task force for pollution plume in Victor, New York

March 8, 2008 - Victor, N.Y. - The Town Board will name a citizen’s task force Monday to deal with the groundwater contamination in the western part of town. The goal will be to come up with recommendations.

About 55 homes are located in a mile-long “plume” of contamination from south of Dryer Road to Modock Road springs. About 200 people live in or next to the area.

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Homeowners and buyers increasingly consider environmental contamination

March 9, 2008 - If you have concerns about environmental problems near your home, you've got three options.

- You can check the public databases yourself, for free, although it may take a little time.

- You can hire a home inspector, with variable costs, or a company like Environmental Data Resources Inc. can do the research, for about $100 to $150.

- Or you can cross your fingers, figure the odds are in your favor, and forget the whole thing.

It's your risk, and your call.

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Connecticut Legislature Introduces Bill Requiring Disclosure of Environmental Hazards in all Residential Real Estate Transactions

HB 5874, was recently introduced in CT. The purpose of the bill is:

To require a written disclosure of proximity to an environmentally hazardous site prior to the sale of residential property and to give the potential purchaser of such property the right to terminate his or her obligation to purchase the property based upon such disclosure.

Read the full text of the bill here.

This is an important Bill that should be supported by anybody who believes that homebuyers have a right to know about environmental contamination on or near properties they are considering purchasing. Just spend a little time reading the stories on this blog and think about how many families could have been spared hardship and health risks if such a law existed in all states.

Disclosure: The company I work for - Environmental Data Resources - is a strong supporter of this bill.

If you would like to support HB 5874, send a letter indicating your support to:

The Honorable Richard Roy
Chair, Environment Committee
Connecticut House of Representatives
Legislative Office Building, Room 3201Hartford, CT 06106-1591

The Honorable Edward Meyer
Deputy Majority Whip
Chair, Environmental Committee
Connecticut State Senate
Legislative Office BuildingRoom 3200Hartford, CT 06106-1591

Refinery neighbors have toxic legacy in Muskegon, Michigan

March 1, 2008 - George and Sandy Carroll love the Muskegon Township homestead they bought in 1994.

They expected to live there the rest of their lives.

They knew the neighborhood's groundwater was contaminated by petroleum products from Marathon's long-closed oil refinery site a short distance to the northeast. Marathon had test wells all over the place, including several on the Carrolls' land. They knew Marathon had bought other nearby homes and torn them down.

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South Dakotans have no clear legal protection against the unwitting purchase of homes once used as methamphetamine labs

March 2, 2008 - As a result, state homebuyers and renters have relied for years on real estate agents, sellers and property managers to disclose previous meth lab contamination in a home.

An Argus Leader investigation shows that people in Sioux Falls have unknowingly bought homes that once were meth labs. And with no standards for cleanup, those people might not know whether they have been exposed to meth residue or toxic chemicals used to make the drug.

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Carcinogenic benzene contamination covers 16-acre area within California neighborhood

February 29, 2008 - Soil contaminated with toxic substances covers a 16-acre swath centered in the 2100 block of Del Amo Boulevard, with the highest concentrations found in a 4.5-acre tract, authorities said.

That smaller area is where an investigation has detected levels of carcinogenic benzene vapors at levels of up to 20,000 parts per billion, say officials from the ExxonMobil Torrance Refinery.

The state mandates remedial action - in this case testing and monitoring - when benzene levels in residential areas exceed 10 parts per billion.

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Residents of Liberty Hill, New Hampshire are outraged

March 1, 2008 - With the N.H. Department of Environmental Services' decision just hours old, many who live on the Hill are left wide-eyed, shaking their heads about the state's decision to leave the vast majority of the estimated 121,000 tons of coal tar-contaminated material under the Gilford neighborhood forever.

"I don't even care about my property value any more. I have a five-year-old that I want to be able to grow up safely," said Richard Cote.

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Cleaning up the biggest US oil spill you never heard of (it's under a Brooklyn neighborhood)

Brooklyn residents are pushing Big Oil and the government to remove millions of gallons of petroleum from their neighborhood

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Nobody told the people who bought those homes about the contamination . . .

February 28, 2008 - The barns are long gone, replaced about nine years ago by manufactured homes, some positioned directly where the barns once stood.

Only nobody told the people who bought those homes about the poultry farm or tested the wells for contamination before the lots were sold.

The residents didn’t find out until 2001, when the state tested their wells and found potentially dangerous levels of nitrates in five of them.

High levels of nitrates can lead to a potentially fatal blood disorder in infants and the unborn called methemoglobinemia, or “blue-baby” syndrome. Chicken manure is a common source of nitrate contamination in groundwater.

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Contaminated water supplies in Cumberland County, North Carolina

February 27, 2008 - Suppliers of public drinking water in Cumberland County have been bombarded with contamination problems — from the giant Fayetteville Public Works Commission to the tiny country stores and churches that dot the roadsides.

Potentially unsafe levels of radium, nitrates and coliform bacteria commonly find their way into public systems.

Schools, churches, subdivisions, convenience stores, day-care centers and other businesses are considered to have public supply systems if they serve more than 25 people. All of them draw their water from wells or buy it from the PWC, which gets most of its water from the Cape Fear River.

Like most public water supplies, the PWC has not been immune to contamination. In 2003, the Environmental Protection Agency cited the PWC for unsafe levels of trihalomethanes, a byproduct of chlorination that is known to cause cancer.

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Water contamination in McBee, South Carolina

February 28, 2008 - More than 100 residents of the McBee area came together Thursday to learn more about the possible contamination of the groundwater in the region.

S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control officials presented the facts of the situation and ways for the residents of the area to avoid the contaminated water.

The chemicals contaminating the groundwater is Ethylene Dibromide (EDB) and the other is Dibromochloropropane (DBCP). Both chemicals were used as farming pesticides. DBCP was discontinued in 1979 and, according to DHEC, most use of EDB was discontinued in 1984.Prolonged ingestion of the contaminated water might lead to problems with the liver, the stomach, the kidneys and reproductive systems. The chemicals also might increase the risk of developing cancer in some people.

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EPA to spend $21 million on cleanup of Superfund site that spans entire Indiana neighborhood

February 26, 2008 - A federal Superfund site spanning an entire neighborhood with lead-tainted soils will be cleaned up as part of $21 million project that could take up to five years, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Tuesday.

Under the plan, the EPA will remove tainted soil from several hundred residential yards and commercial properties in the 141-acre Jacobsville Neighborhood Superfund site and replace it with clean soil. The tainted soil will be disposed of at a regulated landfill.

The EPA placed the site on its Superfund priority list in July 2004. Since then, the agency has conducted six rounds of soil testing.

It's not known how many people may have been affected by the contaminated soil, but EPA officials have said the risk of exposure is high.

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Fayetteville, North Carolina: People drinking well water vulnerable to contaminants

February 28, 2008 - When a customer of a public water system turns on his tap, he knows he is getting water that has been tested for contaminants.

But people whose homes are supplied by wells often don’t know what’s in the water they are drinking. Private wells, in most cases, are not tested or monitored by state or local officials.

The cause for most of the state’s groundwater contamination is leaking underground storage tanks, hundreds of which are ignored in violation of federal regulatory standards.

State officials know of more than 30,600 underground storage tanks. About 1,200 new leaks are reported every year. But it takes about 15 inspectors between four and five years to visit every site in the state. Nine more inspectors would be needed to meet a federally recommended two-year inspection cycle to catch more leaks and hasten the cleanup .

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North Carolina doesn't mandate contamination disclosures in property sales

February 25, 2008 - Edward Hayter wasted little time after the state sent him a letter in 2006 saying it had found gasoline contamination in his well on Brooklyn Circle.

Hayter paid about $9,500 to have a deep new well drilled in his front yard before putting the property up for sale. Most wells in the county are less than 30 feet deep. Hayter drilled his well to 480 feet.

Danny Soles, a supervisor who has worked with the Health Department for 41 years, said that, in hindsight, the new well probably should not have been drilled because it could pull contaminants into the deeper aquifer.

Kevin Edwards, who bought the house from Hayter as a rental investment last year, said he knew about the new well, but nobody ever told him about the contamination in the old one. Under state law, people selling their homes do not have to disclose such information.

“I just thought it was time for the well to be done,” Edwards said.

He said he would never have bought the property had he known about the contamination.

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Delaware residents alarmed by contaminated wells

February 26, 2008 - Donovan said she was alarmed by an article in The Sunday News Journal saying that four property owners less than half a mile away will be offered free hookups to public water because of toxic substances in their well water. Donovan and other residents surrounding decades-old toxic spill sites north of Delaware City called on environmental regulators to take more aggressive efforts to inform the public.

"We haven't had our well tested in a while, and I am concerned," said Donovan, who sells animal feed and raises goats. "I haven't heard anything for a long time about the problems they have over there, and I want to know more about it."

David Small, deputy secretary of the state Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control, said his office is evaluating whether enough is being done to inform residents about pollution in the area.

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Lack of notice about contaminated water angers North Carolina family

February 24, 2008 - State environmental officials are required to notify people when potentially unsafe levels of a contaminant are found in their well water, but that doesn’t always happen.

Until this month, Tony and Kim Voelker and their three young children drank well water contaminated with nitrates.

The state discovered the nitrates in the Voelkers’ well and three others on Trimble Lane and Ellenbrook Drive in 2006. The dead-end streets are on a former farm field near Stedman.

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Cancer-causing chemicals taint Delaware wells

February 24, 2008 - 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.

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Congressional committee probes killing of Great Lakes cancer report

February 21, 2008 - The U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology is investigating allegations that the nation’s top public-health agency has blocked publication of a study that links industrial contaminants to cancer and increased infant mortality in the Great Lakes states.

In 2001, the International Joint Commission, a U.S.-Canadian organization that manages shared waterways and monitors pollution, requested a report that would look at the potential human health impact of environmental contamination in 26 “Areas of Concern” across the Great Lakes.

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Residents of Ft. Lauderdale neighborhood advised to avoid all contact with dirt and dust

February 22, 2008 - Great post on Enviroblog about Ft. Lauderdale neighborhood contaminated with Dioxin.

Read the post here.

High concentrations of a chemical solvent found in East Hampton, New York tap water

February 21, 2008 - Two months ago Bob Morsch noticed “a terrible odor, a chemical smell” coming from his tap water on King’s Point Road in the Clearwater Beach neighborhood of small lots and mostly second homes served by private wells.

Ensuing tests by the Suffolk County Health Department identified a contaminant rarely found in groundwater, propionaldehyde, which belongs to a class of chemicals for which state guidelines set a limit of 50 parts per billion. At Mr. Morsch’s house in Springs it was found in a concentration as high as 6,500 parts per billion.

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New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services visits contaminated neighborhood

February 22, 2008 - With snow covering the landscape, much like the barren waste underneath, Thursday's visit to Liberty Hill by New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services Commissioner Thomas Burack was more symbolic than substantive.

Responding to complaints from town officials about a perceived lack of action on the part of the state, Burack and his DES team made the journey to Gilford in order to get a better handle on the toxic waste resting under the Liberty Hill Road neighborhood.

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Dioxin contamination in soil of Ft Lauderdale neighborhood

February 22, 2008 - Environmental consultant Frank Estok did not have encouraging news as he toured the Ft Lauderdale neighborhood of Durrs with CBS4 News Chief Investigative reporter Michele Gillen. He knew what was hidden in the soil beneath their feet.

Durrs is the kind of neighborhood where a child scribbles her name in the soil, too young to understand that tests have turned up so many toxins and chemicals in ground beneath the Fort Lauderdale neighborhood, that the State recommends avoiding any contact with dirt or dust there.

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Small Colorado community wages war against uranium mine

February 21, 2008 - Jean Hediger can stand at the edge of her organic wheat farm and look west to the Rockies, east toward this speck-in-the-road town and straight ahead into what she sees as her worst nightmare.

A Canadian company’s plans to establish a uranium mine just across the two-lane county road from Hediger’s farm has triggered a bitter tug-of-war with residents of this fast-growing region about 70 miles north of Denver who fear the risk of contaminated water and other health problems.

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The water that flows from the taps of hundreds of homes in Cumberland County North Carolina is dangerous

February 23, 2008 - It’s dangerous because it comes from wells sunk into groundwater contaminated with arsenic, benzene, nitrates and other toxins. In some cases, officials have warned people that they shouldn’t just avoid drinking their water; they shouldn’t even shower in it for longer than five minutes.

And while families are drinking bottled water or using expensive filtration systems, the state is doing little or nothing to clean up contamination. Health officials say these people should be on public water, but the Fayetteville Public Works Commission — the county’s designated water utility — generally won’t extend lines unless the people who need it pay full cost.

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