Water Contamination, Land Pollution & Hazardous Waste Material are issues families all across America are afflicted with daily.
Last year, health officials discovered groundwater contamination in the Meadow Farms subdivision. The source was determined to be chemicals from the Geocel plant.
Geocel is now paying to hook up these homes to clean water and many people are relieved the work is finally being done.
It's a very real threat, and part of a problem that has been going on for years.
The people who live in the Floating Feather Mobile Home Park in Eagle have received notices for several months that their drinking water has an excess of uranium.
Tom Ackerson, who lives nearby on Leslie Court, said his adult daughter has been in and out of the hospital with severe migraines and other ailments since she moved into his basement apartment two years ago—and doctors have no idea what is wrong with her.
Mr. Ackerson said he smells strange vapors in his basement, and both Ms. Renna and Ms. Wermersbach note that they often smell unusual odors in their neighborhood. They also said that several of their neighbors have died of cancer in recent years.
What they also have in common is that they all live along the edge of documented plume of polluted groundwater—it is contaminated with an assortment of cleaning solvents—the source of which is still unknown and could date back to World War II.
People who have worked at New Bedford High School or Keith Middle School, or people who live in the neighborhood of the schools, are eligible to participate in the interviews, she said.
Current and former students at the schools may also participate, according to the Department of Public Health.
Birds Eye, a national food processor based in Rochester, N.Y., claims the solution is a sugar- and salt-laden organic matter from its operation about one mile to the east.
But Lozar, his wife, Heather -- who is 5-month's pregnant -- and their neighbors contend the fluid has contaminated their wells with arsenic, iron and manganese.
More . . .
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state Department of Environmental Quality were meeting with Dow Chemical Co. to determine how the cleanup will proceed. The EPA said it planned to issue an order for an immediate cleanup.
Most, if not all, of the 10 houses already had a simplified cleanup by Dow, the source of the contaminants, in 2005 and 2006, said Bob McCann, spokesman for the DEQ. They were among 230 houses in the river's floodplain where bare soil was covered and carpets and ducts cleaned to minimize possible dioxin contamination.
By 2001, the pollution problem had concerned a Florida Department of Environmental Protection staff member enough that he prepared a letter for the agency's district director, Deborah Getzoff.
The letter instructed Raytheon Network Centric Systems, owner of the plant at 1501 72nd St. N., to reassess the risk to the public and to notify neighbors with irrigation wells.
It was never sent.
Last fall David and Julie Gesner moved out of their yellow two-story Colonial at 156 Pine St. after discovering high levels of lead, arsenic, chromium and cadmium in the soil when they investigated local rumors that their property had been the site of a landfill where garbage and debris were routinely burned.
The Gesners notified the state Department of Environmental Protection and last month the agency ordered a cleanup of the site, including testing to determine the extent of contamination. The town, as well as the Gesners and Manchester resident Michael Bresnahan, who sold them the house, were all named as parties potentially responsible for the cleanup.
Once the evidence is collected, and arrests made, the site still stands. DEA reports say for every pound of meth produced, five pounds of toxic waste can be absorbed by the walls, the carpet, and lingering in vents.
"Those hazards still exist. There could be chemicals that could make you sick or in worst case scenario kill you."
New residents can move in and never know their home is a former meth lab.
Riess and her husband moved out of their home last September after radioactive levels 300 times above what's considered safe were discovered on her property. Tronox, the successor to Kerr-McGee, has been paying for some of the family's living expenses.
Picher's mines closed around 1970; the wounds they inflicted on the people and land never healed.
It is the center of the Tar Creek Superfund site, a 40-square-mile area that also takes in portions of Missouri and Kansas.
More . . .Confidential inter-office memos between Morse Chain executives from more than 30 years ago show that staff became aware of a degreaser leak that fed oil and trichloroethylene into the factory's fire water reservoir in August 1972.
Staff reviewed their options, including an “alternative ... to let things go as is.”
The memos were evidence in litigation brought by Emerson Electric Co. against BorgWarner roughly 20 years ago and were never previously reported.
Homeowners said that they feel DEP officials do not have their best interests in mind.
Grover Griffin shared his fear about contamination to fields that neighborhood children play on.
"All these kids out here are someone's grandchildren," Griffin said.The danger here lies in what cannot be seen. It’s about 200 feet underground and has festered there since the time this cluster of homes in Perkasie, along Cedar View Avenue and Evergreen Lane, a cul-de-sac that spills into Cedar View, was constructed in the mid-1970s.
Even if it were above ground, out in the open, the danger would be difficult to recognize. It would look like water, colorless, but with a slightly sweet odor and a sweet, but burning taste. A potentially deadly taste, because drinking it or even breathing it could cause nervous system effects, liver and lung damage, abnormal heartbeat, coma and possibly death.
It is trichloroethylene, or TCE.
