Residential wells in Jackson North Carolina contaminated with Benzene

January 30, 2008 - It’s been almost a year since Bonita Fox and her family have taken a sip of water from their well.

Fox, 52, is only able to use her well to wash clothes and take five-minute showers. Other daily activities — like brushing teeth or making a pot of coffee — are out of the question. The Jackson County family’s well is contaminated with benzene, a cancer-causing agent.

A gas leak from an above-ground tank has been named the culprit for spreading the chemical into the aquifer, county officials say. The Fox home —located off U.S. 74 on Racking Cove Road — sits downhill from the former gas station site.

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Forbes: America's Most Miserable Cities

Interesting piece from Forbes. One of the considerations they took into account in determining the "most miserable cities" is number of toxic sites.

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Lobbying for vapor intrusion laws in New York

January 29, 2008 - Pressing Albany to pass laws protecting people from TCE vapors is the goal of a new group called the New York State Vapor Intrusion Alliance.

It's made up of people from Endicott, Hillcrest, Ithaca, East Fishkill and other places where vapors from industrial solvents in groundwater are rising into buildings.

TCE, linked to a variety of illnesses, is the most common.

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Toxic terror in San Francisco

January 29, 2008 - SAN FRANCISCO (FinalCall.com) - A cross section of Black, Latino, Asian-Pacific Islander and progressive Whites are determined to win a battle with city and congressional leaders over what activists call one of the most horrific cases of environmental racism and political double dealing in the country.

The fight began when children at the Muhammad University of Islam (MUI), which sits at the top of Bay View Hunters Point, were unknowingly exposed for months, maybe longer, to asbestos and other cancer-causing toxins when the Lennar Corporation a multi-billion dollar housing developer began grading a hill directly beside the school to make way for 1,500 homes on the site of the old Hunters Point Naval Shipyard.

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First owner of house near toxic site in Michigan got cancer

January 29, 2008 - When Beth Agle and her family first visited the vacant, 1-acre site of their future home on S. Morrish Road in Gaines Township, they thought it was everything they had been searching for.

But unknown to them, a quarter-mile away was the site of the former Berlin & Farro dump, once considered one of the nation's worst toxic waste sites.

In 2000, Agle, her husband and two daughters moved into the home. Three years later, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer that quickly spread to her bladder, colon and abdominal wall. Now she has learned that two members of the family that purchased her home also have been diagnosed with cancer. And they learned of their illnesses about three years after moving in, just as she did.

And like Ron Voelker and his daughter, Shyra, she believes well water at the home could be the cause.

"I wasn't aware of the site being there," said Agle, 44, who now lives in Flint Township and said she still did not know about it when the house was sold. "We drank out of the well all the time and we didn't think anything of it. We did everything, and now it makes me wonder."

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After nearly 30 years of contamination some North Carolina residents get clean water

January 29, 2008 - FAYETTEVILLE -- After nearly 30 years of contamination from benzene and trichloroethylene, clean water will soon start flowing for some residents along Rim Road and Sandra Street.

Emily Beissel takes care of her parents at their home on Rim Road. She knows the new water line comes with a hefty price tag.

"Were we gonna get the money," Beissel explained. "Cause see my parents, you know, they're, they don't have a lot of money. He's just wondering how much it's gonna cost. Are we going to have to pay for it?"

The Fayetteville Public Works Commission says residents will have to pay a $5,000 hook up fee. But at least they'll be able to connect. That's not the case for residents in 10 homes on nearby Maggie Circle and Debbie Street.

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Checking pollution risks gets easier for home buyers

January 27, 2008 - There is a developing movement to investigate pollution sources in the neighborhood before you purchase a home.

"The review [of local environmental hazards] has long been a standard part of the commercial real estate industry," said Rob Barber of Environmental Data Resources. "In the past two or three years, the practice has begun to bleed its way into the residential real estate market."
Barber is chief executive officer of EDR, a Milford, Conn., company that analyzes local, state and federal hazard records to give home buyers a sense of potential environmental problems on or near their prospective property.

EDR's environmental risk reports, available through some home inspectors, cost around $150. But you can also get at least some of the same information for free by going to a page run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (epa.gov/enviro) or by going to scorecard.org, which was launched by the non-profit environmental advocacy group Environmental Defense in 1998 and is now owned by Green Media Toolshed.

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Illinois residents form group to help fight for cleanup

January 27, 2008 - Like so many others in Champaign, M.D. Pelmore's basement sump pump goes into overdrive during the rainy season to keep groundwater at bay.

But every once in awhile there's something else: an unusual smell he can't quite place.

Pelmore lives steps away from the 3.5-acre site of a former coal gasification plant, now the focus of a cleanup effort by AmerenIP.

And that makes him nervous.

He built his basement over an old abandoned water well, and he's worried that contaminated groundwater or vapors might somehow find their way into his home.

He's also worried about what his children might have been exposed to years ago, when it was common for youngsters to play on the now fenced-off site.

Pelmore said he was unaware of the history of the former coal gasification site, which operated at least from 1887 until the early 1950s, until a citizens' group started publicizing the issue a couple of months ago.

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New Jersey's industrial past is buried all over - maybe even in your own back yard

January 27, 2008 - Ten years ago, Wade Dawkins bought a home on Somerset Avenue, a quiet street in Pleasantville. He knew there was a stone and recycling business nearby, but 10 acres of trees stood between Dawkins' house and the recycling operation.

Those trees, he recently learned, did more than provide a nice view, shade and separation from the business. They were growing over at least 20 years of trash and debris.

"I really didn't know about the landfill," Dawkins said. "I might not have bought the house if I'd known."

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EPA to test for toxic vapor intrusion in Hellertown Pennsylvania

January 28, 2008 - Contaminated soil at the former Champion Spark Plug factory on Main Street is covered with a cap under a layer of asphalt, but federal officials want to determine if any chemical gases from the property made their way into nearby homes.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to test two residences over the next few months for the presence of trichloroethylene (TCE), one of the chemicals that entered the soil and groundwater at the site between 1930 and 1976.

Exposure to TCE, which is used to remove grease from metal parts, could lead to a range of health problems, including headaches, dizziness, impaired heart function and cancer, according to the Agency for Toxic Substance & Disease Registry at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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California state and county health officials to investigate concentration of pancreatic cancer in Oroville

January 27, 2008 - Judy McInturf is making a list of the sick and the dead.

On it are old friends, her son's former co-worker, her daughter's friend, family acquaintances, their adult children. And, of course, her late husband, Haskel.

In hindsight, McInturf wonders if there could be a connection: Were her family and friends caught up in some sort of toxic web – and if so, what's the deadly thread that connects them?

State and county health officials are asking similar questions. Soon, they'll descend upon this industrial city in central Butte County to investigate an unusual concentration of pancreatic cancer diagnoses and deaths – 23 people in 2004-05, more than twice what would be expected. They will interview the patients still living and the families of the dead, looking for environmental clues.

It's rare for the state to go to such lengths in pursuit of a possible cancer cluster – a signal there could be cause for alarm. It's even rarer in such cases for researchers to identify a single toxic culprit.

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Suit against Dow for contamination should be class action, Michigan court says

January 26, 2008 - A citizen lawsuit alleging damages caused by contamination from Dow Chemical Co. should become a class action, the Michigan Court of Appeals said in a decision released Friday.

Those who sued the chemical giant claim that dioxin from Dow's Midland plant got into the Tittabawassee River and contaminated their properties, reducing home values and making homes hard to sell.

The lawsuit seeks to cover anyone who lives in the 100-year floodplain, which could be as many as 2,000 people, the court said.

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Lawsuit brought by Illinois cancer patients settled

January 25, 2008 - Racine-based Modine Manufacturing Co. announced today it has settled a lawsuit brought by two next-door neighbors with brain cancer who alleged their illnesses were caused by contamination from a Modine manufacturing plant here.

The agreement in principle settles 22 personal injury cases filed in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas and an alleged class action lawsuit that was filed in federal court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Litigation against other named companies in the lawsuits continues.

The lawsuit contended that all three brain cancers were caused by toxic contamination of air and groundwater by the three defendant companies. The suit alleged “years of toxic chemical spills that led to contamination with known cancer-causing compounds, including vinyl chloride and trichloroethene.”

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After decades, EPA moves to clean Connecticut superfund site

January 25, 2008 - WATERBURY -- For nearly two decades, Joseph Santos' morning walks on Store Avenue took him past a contaminated wasteland littered with abandoned barrels and other debris.

On Thursday, the barrel era officially came to an end when Environmental Protective Agency contractors, wearing hard hats, yellow coveralls and respirators, heaved about 30 containers from the desolate site near Meriden Road and shipped them off to Massachusetts.

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New York sues chemical companies over contamination in Queens

January 24, 2008 - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is suing three chemical companies and a defunct dry-cleaning supply business over the contamination of several drinking water wells.

The suit, filed in federal court in Brooklyn, is an attempt to recover at least some of the $30 million the city and state expect to spend cleaning up an underground plume of the dry cleaning chemical perchloroethylene, or PCE, believed to have leaked from a former distribution facility in the Jamaica section of Queens.

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Dozens sign up to have homes tested for TCE vapors in Endicott New York

January 23, 2008 - Just as hundreds of village residents before them, dozens of West Endicott residents signed up Wednesday night to have their homes tested for the industrial solvent trichloroethylene.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation will test the homes, generally in the area south of June Street and north of Main Street, in February and March for the industrial solvent that has shown up in tests of groundwater underneath the neighborhood.

The residents should know the results of the tests a few months after that, said Bill Wertz of the DEC.

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High levels of TCE vapors detected in some South Hill New York structures

January 23, 2008 - Ambient air samples in some South Hill structures show higher levels of TCE than have ever been found since Emerson began testing ambient air in 2004, according to a letter from Emerson Power Transmission to some South Hill homeowners.

Specific homeowners whose homes showed high TCE levels have been notified individually, Baldridge said.

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Contamination lingers in South Hill area of Ithaca New York

January 24, 2008 - The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and Health will hold a public meeting from 6:30 to 9 p.m. today at Ithaca Town Hall to discuss the progress of ongoing environmental investigations into contamination at different South Hill locations.

The sites under investigation are Emerson Power Transmission on South Aurora Street, the South Hill Business Campus, located across the street from Ithaca College, and the NCR Sewer. The sewer runs along the Emerson site and down South Aurora Street to Columbia Street and Turner Place.

According to a fact sheet prepared by the DEC and mailed to many South Hill residents in November, a series of tests performed in and around the Emerson plant in the late 1980s revealed high levels of tricholoroethene (TCE) and other volatile organic compounds in the groundwater.

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10 year old gas station leak in Holland Michigan will take 10 more years to clean

January 24, 2008 - An underground gasoline leak in Holland's Midtown neighborhood at least a decade old is slated to be cleaned up over the next 10 years.

A since-demolished Amoco gas station and the existing South River Shell Mini-mart have contributed to the contamination and both are paying for the clean up, said Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Hydrogeologist Chris Christensen.

The plume of gasoline extends from the Shell station on the southeast corner of River Avenue and 15th Street north across 15th.

Leaks are a common problem, said Christensen, who works in the remediation and redevelopment division -- so are contamination plumes.

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Firm hired to search for more creosote in Hattiesburg Mississippi neighborhood

January 24, 2008 - The city of Hattiesburg has hired a local firm to drill in a Hattiesburg neighborhood where residents believe the ground is contaminated with creosote.

The work is the most recent development in what has been an ongoing dispute over alleged contamination of creosote, a toxic chemical, from a closed plant.

Creosote was found in the ground at the site after the company went out of business in the 1960s.

Sometime prior to 1960, the creosote seeped into the ground of an old industrial park in the area, which then drained, contaminating several blocks near the plant, environmental agencies said.

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North Carolina company wants neighbors to help pay for pollution cleanup

January 20, 2008 - A company being sued by neighbors for polluting groundwater around its plant here is asking a court to force those neighbors to help pay for testing and cleanup of contamination.

AVX Corp. says in a proposed complaint filed in federal court that federal laws require shared liability for environmental contamination. Cleanup of the property, which is contaminated with the chemical trichloroethylene, could cost millions of dollars.

"It's audacious that AVX would try to blame its pollution on the poor people who've worked all their lives for their homes," said Gene Connell, a lawyer representing property owners near AVX's headquarters in this resort town. "These are innocent landowners."

According to documents at the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, the company dumped trichloroethylene into groundwater and the city's sewer system for at least 14 years, ending in 1995, and has known about contamination at its site for 20 years. AVX paid a $7,000 fine as part of a consent agreement with state agency, but admitted no wrongdoing.

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Illinois Landfill's methane gas leaks pose worry to neighbors

January 20, 2008 - "Our lives are not our own. We live in fear and uncertainty."

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency started testing homes in Perez's neighborhood in November for methane, which can cause explosions or fires if trapped in confined areas such as basements.

The gas is seeping from the landfill at Schick and County Farm roads and has been detected underground, although not in any homes.

The dump has a history of pollution problems. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency was aware in 1994 and 2000 that methane gas was found at unsafe levels near the perimeter.

And that's why Perez and others are asking tough questions about the state's accountability.

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NY Times: At Some Superfund Sites, Toxic Legacies Linger

January 20, 2008 - The New York Times examines the lingering impact of Superfund sites on communities and the environment.

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Health alert issued for neighbors of Florida Superfund site

January 18, 2008 - The Escambia County Health Department has issued a precautionary health advisory for individuals who may live or work near the Escambia Treating Company Superfund site at 3910 N. Palafox St.

Soil excavation and clean-up are taking place and that digging may produce dust particles and release odors.

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Oregon neighborhood tested for cancer-causing contamination

January 17, 2008 - EUGENE - Another round of tests for a Eugene neighborhood believed to be polluted by an old train-yard.

From 2004 to 2006, air samples were taken from homes in the Trainsong area. The results showed crawl-spaces filled with high amounts of cancer-causing agents from tainted groundwater.

Precautionary measures were taken for those homeowners. Now comes the task of determining if those measures worked."

I didn't know there was a problem until last year," said Trainsong resident, Glenda Carroll.

Carroll lived in the Trainsong neighborhood with her husband for almost twenty years. She says he died last last January from kidney failure.

"They say kidney failure is one of the things that this causes. I can not tell you how many cats I've had that have died of kidney failure in this house," said Carroll.

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A Success Story: Cleanup Nears Completion in Salt Lake Neighborhood

January 18, 2008 - LITTLE COTTONWOOD CANYON - The well-trimmed yards and high-priced homes obscured an ugly fact for many years about the neighborhood at the canyon's opening. Three defunct smelters had fouled the landscape with dangerously high levels of arsenic and lead.

But now the polished image matches the reality. Dangerous dirt has been scooped out and hauled away from 29 homes. The landscaping has been replaced.

"This was a very difficult Superfund cleanup," said Thomas D. Daniels, who oversaw three years of gritty work and delicate compromise for the Utah Divison of Environmental Response and Remediation.

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Concerns over contaminated water intensify in New Hampshire

January 17, 2008 - A federal finding that drinking water at seven of 10 Rockingham County mobile home parks is contaminated with a gasoline additive called MTBE is surprising scientists and spurring ongoing legal efforts by the state to get oil companies to clean up the mess.

The study, released Jan. 1 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, also found that half the private wells tested in the most populous regions of the county were similarly contaminated, as are 40 percent of the community water supplies in those areas.

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What is TCE?

AZFamily.com offers a great overview of what TCE is, how people can be exposed to it and how it can affect health.

Highlights
Trichloroethylene is a colorless liquid which is used as a solvent for cleaning metal parts. Drinking or breathing high levels of trichloroethylene may cause nervous system effects, liver and lung damage, abnormal heartbeat, coma, and possibly death. Trichloroethylene has been found in at least 852 of the 1,430 National Priorities List sites identified by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

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Washington State Department of Ecology seaks public comment on cleanup of toxic plume beneath Vancouver neighborhood

January 15, 2008 - The state Department of Ecology has approved the Port of Vancouver's plan for completing cleanup of a toxic plume laying beneath a west Vancouver neighborhood.

Now the department wants to hear what the public thinks.

Ecology and the Port are holding a public meeting tonight to talk about what is expected to be the last step in a process that began in 1998 to remove a potentially dangerous solvent from the groundwater. The meeting starts at 6:30 p.m. in the Fruit Valley Elementary School cafeteria, 3410 N.W. Fruit Valley Road.

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Coal tar contamination causing health worries among residents and officials in New Hampshire town

January 15, 2008 - Shortly after the Liberty Hill coal tar contamination was made public there were, residents and town officials have been raising concerns over health and environmental issues. The health fear is that the toxins underneath the Gilford neighborhood might be affecting area residents.

Now, three sisters are sharing their childhood story of Liberty Hill and their bouts with chronic illnesses. Robin Allard, Kim Bolton, and Allison Stresing sisters believe their health problems are linked to the coal tar that has been under Liberty Hill for the better part of six decades.

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Renters often find homes contaminated with meth

January 13, 2008 - CINCINNATI -- Spasms of coughing and an occasional nosebleed still plague three of Cindy Wilson's children nearly four months after she moved the family out of her country dream home once it was discovered that she was renting a former methamphetamine lab.

A son, born in July after the family left, now exhibits some of the same problems.

Wilson said she threw out most of her family's belongings -- including toys -- but kept appliances and bedding from the contaminated house in Whitewater Township, Ohio, because she couldn't afford to replace them.

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3M presentsWoodbury, Minn., residents with four options for cleaning up perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs)

January 11, 2008 - 3M has presented Woodbury, Minn., residents with four options for cleaning up perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) that are leaking into the groundwater underneath a company-owned landfill.

Nelson says 3M does not think the Woodbury landfill is the source of the city's contaminated drinking water. However, he says the company agrees it should clean up the Woodbury site anyway.

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Texas lawsuits links cancer and birth defects to contamination from industrial activities

January 7, 2008 - One of many lawsuits against Burlington Northern Santa Fe Corp. claiming a railroad tie factory poisoned residents in the small town of Somerville, causing cancer and birth defects, is set to go to trial in Fort Worth this week.

The suit was filed by Linda and Donnie Faust, two of the dozens of people living in the Central Texas town who have sued the Fort Worth-based railroad company over a railroad tie factory owned by a predecessor firm until 1995.

The Fausts say creosote and other dangerous substances released by the factory helped cause Ms. Faust's devastating stomach cancer. Donnie Faust has worked at the plant near the Fausts' home since 1974.

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State officials hunt environmental cause for cancer cluster in Oroville California

January 10, 2008 - The discovery of a cluster of pancreatic-cancer cases in Oroville has state and local health officials hunting for an environmental cause, with initial attention focused on the koppers wood-treatment plant, a former Superfund site that closed in 2001.

An analysis of state cancer data showed found 23 cases of the pancreatic disease in 2004 and ’05, twice the expected number.

Beginning in 1973, officials found significant amounts of carcinogenic pentachlorophenol and other toxic chemicals in residential wells near the Koppers plant.

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Clean water finally coming for Chica California residents with contaminated wells

January 11, 2008 - Clean water is coming to a south Chico neighborhood — a neighborhood where wells were contaminated years ago by chemical pollutants.

About 60 homes in the Skyway Avenue subdivision will be hooked up to the Cal Water system and the bill will be footed by ABB, the corporation being held responsible for clean-up costs.

Bottled water was first provided to the homes, then filters, soon after a plume of groundwater contamination was identified about four years ago, but the residents wanted a more permanent solution.

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State health and environmental officials to begin new testing of New York homes for vapor intrusion

January 10, 2008 - This winter, state health and environmental officials will begin testing homes in Endicott and the Town of Union for signs of hazardous chemicals flowing in the ground around them.

The area includes more than 12 blocks of residential and commercial property, mostly between June Street on the north and Main Street on the south. It extends west to North Grippen Avenue into the Town of Union, and east to South Loder Avenue in Endicott, according to records from the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

Officials declined Thursday to say how many structures would be tested, or when, until residents in the area are notified. Letters were mailed from Albany on Wednesday, said Lori O'Connell a spokeswoman for the state DEC.

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EPA to clean up Arizona homes contaminated with arsenic, lead and copper

January 11, 2008 - The Environmental Protection Agency will proceed with the cleanup of 15 homes in the copper mining towns of Hayden and Winkelman after soil tests revealed high levels of arsenic, lead and copper, officials announced during public hearings Wednesday and Thursday.

The soil in the yards of the homes will be removed and replaced with clean dirt, and the interiors of the homes will be vacuumed and scrubbed with special equipment, EPA officials said.

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Buffalo New York homeowners to share $7.2 million contamination settlement

January 9, 2008 -

Hickory Woods homeowner Patrick Blake was in City Hall on Tuesday when lawmakers unanimously approved a $7.2 million settlement to end an eight-year dispute with hundreds residents of the South Buffalo subdivision.

As Blake left Common Council Chambers, he expressed mixed emotions. His family moved into Hickory Woods in 1996. His son was born and raised in a neighborhood that later became the focus of health and environmental concerns. Contaminated soil was detected in a neighborhood built in the late 1980s and early 1990s on parcels purchased and developed by the city.

The boy, now 12, is legally blind and unable to talk. Blake, who feels the health problems are related to the contamination, is convinced his son would have received greater compensation if the case had gone to trial. But he said his family wants to move on with their lives. Blake said his immediate goal is to pay off his mortgage and “get . . . out of there.”

“I just want to end this,” he told reporters.

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Terre Haute Indiana residents want safe drinking water

January 8, 2008 - Some north-side Terre Haute residents concerned about their well water have received the latest proposal from Standard Register outlining how it will provide a safe drinking-water supply to the area.

The company is offering to connect up to 25 properties to Indiana-American Water Co.

Also, it will provide a lump sum payment of $3,400 to 12 of those property owners to offset future water bills.

The affected homes are southwest of Terre Haute North Vigo High School. Five of them have wells that are contaminated with perchloroethylene, an industrial solvent.

Residents have mixed reactions to the latest offer.

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Home heating oil leaks into Lake Kenosia in Danbury Connecticut

January 9, 2008 - Between 75 to 80 gallons of heating oil leaked out of a home fuel tank Tuesday and onto the shore and water of Lake Kenosia.

Firefighters responded to a report of a fuel spill at 85 Boulevard Drive after a neighbor spotted a red slick in the water.

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State advises all New Hampshire residents to test wells for MTBE

January 5, 2008 - State officials are advising residents to have their private wells tested for MtBE, a chemical additive used in gasoline that has been linked to cancer in lab rats.

A new report shows the contaminant is widespread through the state.

That the MtBE remains in wells a year after it was banned does not surprise New Hampshire Department of Environmental Service spokesman Fred McGarry.

"It will be that way for some time to come," said McGarry. "Exactly how long, we're still trying to figure out. Some experts feel it will take 20 to 30 years to dissipate, depending on the type of well or aquifer we're talking about."

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Endicott NY residents sue IBM for over $100M over contamination

January 5, 2008 - A group of Southern Tier residents and businesses filed a lawsuit Thursday against IBM Corp. over more than $100 million in claims they say are linked to pollution from the company's former microelectronics plant in Endicott.

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Energy drilling linked to well contamination in Colorado

January 2, 2008 - Sharon Britton says oil and gas companies contaminated her water and made her sick, forcing her to desert her home in rural Adams County.

Proving it, however, is another thing.

Her plight, as she tells it, dates to at least 2004, when water from her well showed a dark-grayish tint. Laundered clothes came out dingy.

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Study: MTBE contamination rampant in New Hampshire

January 4, 2008 - A new study shows that contamination of New Hampshire's water supply by gasoline additive MTBE, a carcinogen that was banned at the start of last year, is widespread.

The study, conducted for the Department of Environmental Services by the U.S. Geological Survey, found MTBE, or methyl tertiary-butyl ether, in 18 percent of the 284 public wells tested statewide and in 9.1 percent of the 264 private wells tested.

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Local landfill suspected source of TCE contamination in 26 residential wells in Virginia

January 4, 2008 - he EPA had proposed in September that the long-closed landfill be added to the agency�s Superfund program, established to clean up abandoned hazardous sites. Remedial project manager Fred MacMillan made a presentation to the supervisors at their last meeting to let them know what the EPA would be doing at the site, where it expects to begin work in March.
The landfill was long suspected as the source of trichloroethylene (TCE) that was found in 26 wells at nearby homes. The chemical is an industrial solvent and a carcinogen, and ingestion of it can cause nervous system, liver and lung damage, abnormal heartbeat and coma, as well as birth defects if consumed by pregnant women, according to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

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94 Endicott New York residents file lawsuit against IBM for contamination and vapor intrusion

January 3, 2008 - Ninety-four people along with seven law firms from four states are teaming up to sue the IBM Corporation.

Philip Johnson, a partner with Levene, Gouldin, and Thompson law firm, said, "We're not trying to get them to admit anything. We have one simple goal, to get reasonable compensation for the injuries our clients have sustained."

From cancer to heart defects to property devaluation. Former IBM Endicott plant employees and area residents, are claiming to be harmed by the contamination of hundreds of properties in the Village of Endicott, the birthplace of IBM, and the adjoining town of Union.

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Endicott New York residents bring toxic tort lawsuit

January 2, 2008 - Lawyers representing 90 clients who say they've been harmed by widespread environmental contamination, have called a news conference tomorrow in Endicott, to announce details of what's described as a toxic tort lawsuit, being filed in State Supreme Court in Broome County.

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Smoldering landfill fire keeps Tennessee community on edge

December 30, 2007 - Early Friday morning, firefighters evacuated a West Knox County neighborhood after uncovering dangerous levels of carbon monoxide.

It all happened less than a half mile from Ray Duncan's house.

"There's a fairly large landfill that's developed up there where a fire has gotten underneath it," said Bruce Wuethrich, from Knox County Engineering & Public Works.

And no one seems to know how long it has been smoldering.

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Health and Environmental Impacts of Uranium Contamination in the Navajo Nation

December 29, 2007 - Late this year, spurred to action by a series of articles in The Los Angeles Times in 2006, Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) held a hearing on “The Health and Environmental Impacts of Uranium Contamination in the Navajo Nation” in the House Oversight Committee.

The Waxman hearings led to a charge to federal and Navajo Nation agencies to determine a course of action for dealing with the aftermath of uranium mining: Identify a plan for the studies, tasks and long-term actions needed to get a handle on and deal with the contamination issues left behind, as well as a budget. Some close to the situation anticipated a multi-year plan and budget.

The agencies, however, returned with a one-year plan.

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