Wisconsin neighborhood protests dumping of contaminated soil

April 16, 2008 - People living near the Two Rivers Woodland Industrial Park are protesting the dumping of contaminated soil in their neighborhood.

Trucks have been hauling soil from the construction site on 16th Street to a vacant lot in the industrial park next to Classic Coatings Inc.

"There's going to be runoff, there's going to be saturation into the soil," said Jaimie Salta, who lives 1/8-mile north of the site.

More. . .

Riverside, California cement plant's neighbors react to news about toxic carcinogen in the air

April 16, 2008 - The air above the TXI Riverside Cement Plant was blinding white Tuesday, blocking out the blue sky. For as long as Mary Alfonso, 79, can remember, dust from the factory has been a feature of life on "the Hill" just above it.

The dust was annoying, and people in the neighborhood assumed it wasn't good for them. But despite complaints over the years, they said, no one ever cleaned it up completely.

On Tuesday, residents of "the Hill" learned that the South Coast Air Quality Management District had found high levels of hexavalent chromium, a toxic carcinogen, in dust blowing from the outdoor "clinker piles" of the century-old plant in the Rubidoux area. And to add insult to injury, no officials had notified them.

More . . .

Carcinogen Found In Franklin Tennessee Groundwater

April 14, 2008 - Crews Found Benzene Level In Groundwater Sample

Sixteen months after discovering chemical leaks in a Franklin creek, another chemical has been found under some homes.

When crews dug a well to sample ground water to determine how far tolulene and acetone contamination from the plant had spread, they didn’t find either one, but they found benzene.

Benzene is a carcinogen that can cause dizziness, vomiting and even blood disease under long-term exposure.

More . . .

Florida Contamination Spurs Class-Action Against Raytheon

April 14, 2008 - A Pinellas County attorney filed a class-action lawsuit today against the Raytheon Corp. on behalf of residents who may be affected by contaminated groundwater in the Azalea area of St. Petersburg.

Saunders said he wants Raytheon to pay for medical screening of people in the neighborhood and that the stigma of contamination already has diminished property values.

More . . .

Contamination rousts a family, may cost town in Manchester MA

April 23, 2008 - Following the discovery of high levels of chromium, arsenic, cadmium, lead, and other chemicals in the soil, the state Department of Environmental Protection is insisting that the site be cleaned, and the Gesners have been left paying for a house that they dare not live in and cannot sell.

"We'd like to see some assessment on neighboring properties, as well," said Ed Coletta, a spokesman for the state agency. He added that both the town and the house's previous owner were sent letters this month indicating that they may be responsible for the contaminated land. "Eventually, they're going to have do some cleanup work there."

More . . .

Azalea, Florida Neighborhood Residents Discuss Toxic Underground Plume

April 10, 2008 - More than 100 homeowners gathered in the Azalea neighborhood tonight with dozens of questions about a toxic-waste plume that they recently found out is moving under their neighborhood.

The residents want to know whether the contamination poses a threat to their health or the value of their homes.

Chris Nidel, an environmental lawyer and chemical engineer from Washington, D.C., told them both outcomes are possible.

More . . .

Couple sues Chevron over property oil contamination in San Luis Obispo California

April 11, 2008 - A pipeline under the land had leaked years ago, unbeknownst to the new landowners.

The suit alleges that Voisinet’s two lots on the northeastern end of San Luis Drive were tainted more than 25 years ago when a construction worker broke a Union Oil Co. of California pipeline.

According to the lawsuit, the company never adequately cleaned up the pollution and then allowed the lots to be sold for residential development without disclosing that the land was still contaminated.

More . . .

Study: Strong evidence that exposure to pesticides significantly increases the risk of Parkinson's disease

March 28, 2008 - The US researchers found those exposed to pesticides had a 1.6 times higher risk after studying 600 people.

Experts said it was now highly likely pesticides played a key role - albeit in combination with other factors.

More . . .

"Fly ash" may be contaminating residents' water in Chesapeake Virginia

April 7, 2008 - There are major environmental health concerns in Chesapeake. Residents' fears stem from the new Battlefield Golf Course.

The 217-acre course is made with more than 1.5-million tons of "fly ash" which is the by-product left behind when coal is burned to make electricity. It contains heavy metals like arsenic, lead and uranium.

More . . .

Soil, oil spell trouble for home sellers

April 7, 2008 - In December soil contaminated with gasoline products was discovered in the neighborhood that's adjacent the huge ExxonMobil Torrance Refinery - although not on Nixon's property.

Still, the proximity to a potentially major environmental problem was enough to further dissuade already jittery lenders and would-be buyers from consummating any deal for the property in a declining market.

"I've had seven offers in the past three months and they've fallen out of escrow because of this one thing," said Cynthia Kortcamp, the Re/Max Beach Cities agent with the listing.

"This property should have been sold, but it's not sold because of the issues, so poor Julie reduces, reduces, reduces," she added. "We're down to $386,000. - You cannot buy a property on a lot anywhere in Torrance for this price. It's just frustrating. I told Julie I want to take my (for sale) sign off (the property). There's pretty much nothing I can do."

"This is a nightmare," she said. "It's a tragedy for everybody on that street. I'm lucky. I have another place to live. Those people don't."

More . . .

Landfill contamination lawsuits continue in Campbell County Virginia

April 5, 2008 - Claude and Virginia Royal, owners of the 165-acre Twin Oaks manufactured home parknear Yellow Branch, discovered in 2002 that well water serving their residents had elevated levels of volatile organic chemicals, according to a Department of Environmental Quality consent order to the county.

After three years of discussions with the county, the Royals filed several lawsuits in 2005 and 2006 charging that the county operated the landfill in a manner that caused a plume of toxic chemicals to pollute their water and land.

More . . .

EPA tests residential soil for dioxin along Tittabawassee River in Michigan

April 4, 2008 - Catherine A. Faunce and John K. Brown live 10 houses apart on Riverside Drive, a private road straddling the Tittabawassee River and the focus of a new chapter in the dioxin dispute.

Both their properties have undergone various tests by several agencies over the years. Scientists, government agencies and corporations alike have prodded their land.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is the latest to enter the fray.

More . . .

Discovery of contaminants delays Connecticut park project

April 3, 2008 - NEW BRITAIN — - Crews working on a park construction project on Willow Street discovered heavy metals and petroleum-based contaminants that pose no public health threat, the mayor said Wednesday.

More . . .

Minnesota homes to be tested for toxic vapors

April 2, 2008 - Brooklyn Center and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency officials are planning to test for contaminated vapors in homes around 57th and Logan Avenues.

The neighborhood has been under investigation since 2005, when the city purchased the former Hmong American Shopping Center site and discovered groundwater contaminated with chemicals from a former dry-cleaning business.

More . . .

Niagara Falls, NY Mayor takes brownfields plea to state capitol

March 31, 2008 - During a visit to Albany, Dyster joined state Sen. Antoine Thompson, D-Niagara Falls, in urging members of the state Legislature to restore funds for the Brownfield Opportunity Area Program which was established in 2003 to help cities like Niagara Falls deal with legal and environmental concerns that often prevent the cleanup and reuse of abandoned industrial properties.

“The devastation that environmental contamination has wrought in many industrial communities across New York state has had an impact just as great as any natural disaster could have on the economic and social wellbeing of our people,” Dyster told state lawmakers. “Perhaps because it occurred gradually over a period of decades instead of suddenly overnight, people have difficulty grasping how serious our situation really is. Make no mistake: brownfield remediation is an issue that has reached crisis stage in Niagara Falls and many other communities and we are here today to insist that it be given the serious attention it deserves.”

More . . .

Drinking water for tens of thousands of people near three active Superfund sites in Utah at risk or already polluted

March 30, 2008 - Drinking water supplies for tens of thousands of people near three active Superfund sites in the Bountiful and Woods Cross areas have been at risk or even polluted because of groundwater contamination.

The pollution is so bad that the federal government decided to join state regulators in directing long-term cleanup efforts of those sites.

More . . .

Virginia golf course built on fly ash

March 30, 2008 - What sets Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville apart, however, isn't the course's layout or water hazards; this 18-hole playground is sculpted from 1.5 million tons of "fly ash," a charcoal-gray powdery substance left behind by burning coal to make electricity.

If this were not a golf course, an industrial park or a similar venture, it would have to be regulated like a landfill. But because of a provision in the environmental regulations encouraging the "beneficial use" of fly ash, it's considered a "coal combustion byproduct" project instead of an industrial waste landfill.

The ash for Battlefield Golf Club came from a Dominion Virginia Power coal-burning plant 20 miles west in Deep Creek. Monitoring wells at the plant's fly-ash landfill have shown that unacceptably high levels of arsenic leached into groundwater. Arsenic, one of a number of heavy metals found in fly ash, has been linked to cancer, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Seven years ago, homeowners near the golf course knew fly ash posed a threat to water quality and voiced their concerns to developers in community meetings.

More . . .

Gas contamination below ruins lives above in Utah

April 1, 2008 - The gas station a few blocks away had already been blamed for the closure of the movie theater and the dress shop. But Kuhni thought the smells were in her head. Then the first benzene reading inside her house came back - 34 micrograms per cubic meter. State guidelines say the risk of developing cancer increases with constant indoor exposure over 8.8 mcg a year.

She moved out - her 7-year-old daughter, the iguana, the dogs and some clothes. Her job taking reservations for Marriott Hotels is on hold. She shuttles between hotels, her parents' house in Lehi and a friend's place in Aurora.

Kuhni is one of dozens of Gunnison residents and business owners who filed suit against Wind River Petroleum and Top Stop gas stations earlier this month.

More . . .

Contaminated homes in New Orleans denied funds

March 27, 2008 - It was one thing for Leatrice Roberts to find out that the government had sold her a townhome built on top of a waste dump. But it was mindboggling to learn, at age 74, that the Road Home can't buy her out because the land is contaminated.

In the past two weeks, state officials informed homeowners such as Leatrice Roberts who lived atop the old Agriculture Street landfill before Hurricane Katrina hit that their Road Home applications had been placed on hold indefinitely because they live on a Superfund cleanup site. The EPA in 1994 added the 9th Ward enclave to its Superfund list, but said the area could be made safe with mitigation steps such as the replacement of topsoil.

More . . .

Neglected Toxic Waste Plume Worries Neighborhood

March 27, 2008 - A toxic plume of industrial waste discovered by workers building the Pinellas Trail 17 years ago is now coursing through groundwater under Abel's Azalea neighborhood, beneath parks, playgrounds and hundreds of homes, according to samples drawn from test wells.

There are hundreds of private irrigation wells within the area of possible contamination. However, neither the state Department of Environmental Protection nor Raytheon Network Centric Systems has alerted homeowners to the south, even though they have known for three years that the plume is migrating toward that neighborhood.

More . . .

No new conclusions in Liberty Hill, New Hampshire cancer report

March 26, 2008 - The report Gilford has been anticipating for the better part of the last year has finally been released and has added nothing new to what the state has already said about cancer concerns on Liberty Hill. However, what the report admits about potential exposure to past residents, visitors to the site and workers is what citizens have been concerned with all along.

More . . .

South Carolina State Regulators to investigate pollution concerns near north Columbia neighborhood

March 26, 2008 - State regulators will investigate questions about water and air pollution near a north Columbia neighborhood that backs up to an industrial area off I-20.

Residents of the Northwood Hills community say they’ve been trying for two years to get answers from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control, the city of Columbia and Richland County.

“When I’m outside working, it burns,’’ said Ulysses Green, a resident of Staffordshire Road, referring to air pollution he believes comes from nearby.

More . . .

New report details health risks from contamination in Tallevast, Florida

March 24, 2008 - Folks who live in Tallevast already know the contamination from the former American Beryllium plant poisoned the ground water and long term use of the water for drinking, or bathing or cooking can theoretically lead to an increased risk for cancer. And for many years, people in the neighborhood have used their wells as their primary source of water.

In 2004 when the Manatee County Health Department tested those wells and found toxic chemicals in most of them, the wells were closed. Everybody here's been on public water ever since.

More . . .