CAPITAL REGION Schumer: Retest upstate sites for solvent BY MARK ROBARGE Gazette Reporter Reach Gazette reporter Mark Robarge at 395-3123 or mrobarge@dailygazette.net. by Bill Bryson.
U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer called on state and federal environmental officials Wednesday to re-examine sites across upstate New York that have been contaminated by a toxic solvent. But state officials said many sites do not need to be re-evaluated in light of what Schumer, D-N.Y., called new information on trichloroethylene, or TCE, a popular degreasing solvent often used to clean metal but also identified as a carcinogen that can cause numerous health problems. In a conference call, Schumer said the federal Environmental Protection Agency has “turned a blind eye” to growing concern with TCE and called for tougher federal standards for monitoring and clean-up. “This is a crisis that’s grown unabated by the EPA. We need to stop TCE from spreading and clean up the sites,” he said. Schumer identified more than 300 sites in upstate New York in need of new testing in the wake of findings that TCE can spread beyond the initial spill site, seeping into groundwater or vaporizing when it hits pure air. “It means that every site the EPA initially evaluated and declared clean may not be because the TCE may have spread and they didn’t examine whether it had,” he said. Jessica Emond, deputy press secretary for the EPA, said the agency is in the process of developing standards that take into account the most recent information available. “EPA is following a rigorous process to develop a revised human health assessment for TCE using the best available science,” she said. “The revised human health assessment will incorporate recommendations from the National Academy of Sciences, comments from EPA’s Science Advisory Board and information from recently published scientific literature.” Several sites in this area have been tested for TCE and cleaned up by the state Department of Environmental Conservation over the past decade, including the former Scotia Navy Depot, Ward Products in Amsterdam’s Edson Street Industrial Park, the former Campbell Plastics plant in Rotterdam and the Schenectady Regional Orthopedic Associates office on Liberty Street in Schenectady. Maureen Wren, a spokeswoman for the DEC, said that agency will be going back to re-examine any site where testing and cleanup was performed before the findings that TCE can spread beyond the initial spill site. But she pointed out that the DEC was aware of those findings as far back as 2003 and was testing accordingly. The Campbell Plastics and Schenectady Regional Orthopedic Associates cleanups predate those findings and would be re-examined under those DEC guidelines, while the Navy Depot and Ward Products were addressed after those findings and thus are not in need of additional work. “We have been very aggressive, a national leader, in addressing TCE and other types of contamination that present a vapor intrusion problem,” Wren said. “The state is not waiting on the feds to create a standard for these sorts of things. We’re really moving forward aggressively to address it.” TCE has been linked to liver, kidney and lung cancer, according to a fact sheet from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Drinking or breathing high levels of the solvent can also affect the nervous system, damage the lungs and liver, impair the immune system, harm fetal development in pregnant women and cause abnormal heartbeat, coma and death. In the past, Schumer explained, cleanup had involved soil removal or pumping out contaminated groundwater, which may have addressed the initial spill site but did remove any of the solvent that had seeped away. Now, he said, areas as far as a half-mile away from previously contaminated sites are testing positive for TCE vapors and groundwater contamination. “What we know now about TCE shows that the EPA was using a water gun when a cannon was needed,” Schumer said. DEC and state Health Department officials are currently investigating high levels of TCE and perchloroethylene, or PCE, in soil and groundwater at the proposed site of a Lowe’s Home Improvement Warehouse on Freeman’s Bridge Road near Wal-Mart and Sunnyside Road in Glenville. Rick Georgeson, a DEC spokesman, said that agency is still working to identify the source of the contamination, with soil tests expected to begin soon at a nearby warehouse at 107 Freeman’s Bridge Road after the DEC reached an agreement for testing with the property’s owner, Shaun Cole. Meanwhile, the state Health Department has performed air tests at nine businesses and eight homes around the site, department spokeswoman Claire Pospisil said, with mitigation systems installed in two homes in response to test results. She said testing is continuing.
Well, I guess the apt/condos/business proposed for that site will be on hold for a bit, huh? Between the alleged contanination and the smell from the sewage plant,that should make everyone run as quickly as they can to rent/buy housing there.
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
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