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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Oregon public health officials call for more tests of 11 homes

October 31, 2007 - The state Public Health Division has identified 11 homes in Eugene’s Trainsong neighborhood that may — or may not — be polluted by unhealthy levels of solvent fumes, according to a report released Tuesday.

Although the most recent tests of the air in homes show safe levels of solvents, earlier tests found an elevated cancer risk for people living in the homes.

The pollution plume underneath a large swath of the Trainsong and River Road neighborhoods in west Eugene came from decades of solvent spills at the current location of the Union Pacific rail yard.

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Portland third-most contaminated city

October 12, 2007 - Portland is the third-most contaminated city per capita in the United States, according to a new study from Milford, Conn.-based Environmental Data Resources.

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Plume under Oregon neighborhood carries threat of more cancer cases

August 13, 2007 - What's the real harm in the solvent plume under roughly 250 homes in the Trainsong and River Road neighborhoods?

The answer is theoretical and technical - a higher than usual cancer rate among a set number of people.

The state Department of Environmental Quality figures the concentrations are so low that the agency is only concerned about people facing chronic, long-term exposure.

The federally funded Superfund Health Investigation and Education program concluded that levels of solvent in private wells that dip into the plume are so low that it's fine to use the water for everything but drinking. But the investigators also declared - as a precaution - that the solvent vapors in the crawl spaces of some homes are a public health hazard.

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Oregon officials expand testing for toxic fumes rising into homes from contaminated groundwater

June 13, 2007 - The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality announced plans to expand a toxic fumes testing program to include 30 more residents in Eugene's Trainsong neighborhood.

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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Contaminated wells in Oregon

June 4, 2007 - State water officials are making house calls to rural well users this spring as part of a plan to clean up groundwater contamination in the southern Willamette Valley.

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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Health Officials Offer Few Answers to Residents of Oregon Towns

May 18, 2007 - Tiny pieces of the pollution puzzle were all state health officials could offer to residents of the Trainsong, Bethel and River Road neighbor- hoods Thursday evening.

Health officials couldn't say whether any of the dozen polluted industrial sites ringing the neighborhoods are connected with ill health, whether the environment there is improving or worsening, or what was going on to explain the pattern of illness.

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Wells Contaminated with Arsenic in Sweet Home Oregon

April 17, 2007 - Public concerns about high levels of arsenic in well water have prompted a recent and continuing testing program in the area around Sweet Home, Ore., and may raise a warning flag for other areas of the state that could also face problems with this toxin due to geology or land use practices.

In a recent round of testing done near Sweet Home, almost one-fourth of the well water samples showed levels of arsenic now considered unsafe by EPA standards.

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