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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Landfill cleanup could take another decade in Dayton Ohio

December 22, 2007 - Bea Davis, 77, remembers the day in 1994 when the barbed-wire topped fence was erected around the 100-acre Valleycrest Landfill along her backyard property line.

Davis, who has lived in her home at 1919 Valley St. since her father bought the property in the early 1950s, is wondering whether she'll see the day when the toxic waste dump is cleaned up for good.

With $55 million spent, 42,000 barrels of toxic waste hauled away in an emergency action, and more than a decade into the work, regulators say it could easily be another decade before the landfill cleanup is completed and the land can be reused for another purpose, such as recreation fields or a commercial site.

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Meth labs remain hazardous long after arrests

December 3, 2007 - CINCINNATI: No Ohio law regulates the cleanup or disclosure of homes and apartments that are used as labs to cook methamphetamine, leaving unwitting future tenants at risk from poisonous fumes and residue.

Cindy Wilson, 33, says soon after moving into a rental home in western Hamilton County, she and her four children began suffering from nosebleeds and coughing spasms, symptoms her doctor told her could be caused by exposure to methamphetamine.

Testing by county health officials revealed the property had been used as a meth lab. Fearing for her family's heath and furious that she had unknowingly moved her children into a contaminated home, Wilson and her family fled.

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EPA hearings focus on vapor intrusion in Ohio neighborhoods surrounding industrial plants

November 9, 2007 - DAYTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will hold two meetings in coming days to discuss environmental issues surrounding two industrial sites.

The meetings will focus on vapor intrusion issues in the neighborhoods surrounding Delphi Corp.'s Home Avenue plant and the Behr Thermal plant on Webster Street.

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Site of new Dayton Ohio community center is contaminated

October 6, 2007 - The contamination is caused by trichloroethylene, or TCE, a chemical used as a degreaser that is in the groundwater. TCE fumes have migrated into nearby homes, businesses and schools, creating potentially hazardous vapors.

Max Gates, spokesman for Chrysler, said Friday that Chrysler has installed air-scrubbing systems in homes in the neighborhood that have reduced the level of TCE "well below the level of concern."

Chrysler has identified elevated levels of TCE at the planned community center site and is working with the project's architects, Gates said.

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Neighbors of former uranium processing plant in Ohio can Sue - Health threats linked to toxins

August 27, 2007 - A federal judge has ruled that neighbors of a former uranium-processing plant suing because of health problems can proceed with their case, a lawyer for the plaintiffs said Saturday.

The suit was first filed against Divested Atomic Corporation in 1990 by residents who lived near the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, which once enriched uranium for weapons and nuclear fuel, but closed in 2001.

Plaintiffs can go forward on their claim that the plant contaminated their neighborhood with hazardous products, including carcinogenic materials, from its site, said attorney Stanley Chesley, of Cincinnati, who represents plaintiffs in the case.

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Ohio neighborhood with contaminated wells waits for safe drinking water

August 19, 2007 - Eugene Smith is frustrated. He wants the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to pay for hooking his house up to city of Akron drinking water.

Nearly 13 years ago, the federal agency installed devices in Smith's home and seven neighboring houses in Copley Township with polluted wells to remove toxic chemicals from the drinking water.

That was to be a temporary fix. But Smith and five of his neighbors are still relying on the cleansing devices.

Smith, 79, drinks the well water from his tap. On doctor's orders, his wife, Rita, drinks only bottled water.

Repeated tests have shown that the water coming from Smith's tap is safe. But he finds it unsettling to count on the $1,600 system of air strippers and carbon filters to clean the drinking water 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If his and his neighbors' homes were hooked up to Akron's lines, it would ensure they were getting safe drinking water, Smith said.

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Ohio Family Forced Out Of Home By Meth Contamination

May 14, 2007 - CINCINNATI -- A mother and her children will remain out of their home until federal and local investigators can determine if their home is safe.

Cynthia Wilson said health investigators are testing the house on Lawrenceburg Road in North Bend for contamination from a methamphetamine lab.

Wilson said she reported the problem after she and her children suffered severe breathing and other health problems.

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Ohio Homes Checked for Contamination

April 27, 2007 - DAYTON — Delphi Corp. is contacting the owners of 15 homes near its Home Avenue plant to see if possible contamination has spread from an area where tanks once held industrial chemicals.

"Vapors from some of the chemical residues found at the Delphi site have apparently moved into parts of the neighborhood through the ground," Delphi spokesman Lindsey Williams said in an e-mail to the Dayton Daily News.

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One Ohio Gas Station to be Cleaned . . . Several Hundred to Go

The "potential mess" is what prevents abandoned gas stations from being redeveloped, said Peter Chace, chief of the state Bureau of Underground Storage Tank Regulations.

BUSTR figures Ohio has several hundred such stations, along with 23,500 active and registered underground tanks.

"You simply don't know what's down there," Chace said, noting that cleanup is "a roll of the dice. It could be $30,000 or it could be a half a million." More . . .