[Durham INC] Rick Hester: State investigating 11 chemical spill sites in Durham
TheOcean1 at aol.com
TheOcean1 at aol.com
Mon Jun 22 00:56:42 EDT 2009
I'm just one board member of INC, but I would hope I'm not the only one
who thinks this is INC turf.
I've CCed Rick Hester, NIS... hoping he can shed some light.
(See John's request from below)
Can Neighborhood Improvement Services please post the list of 11 chemical
spill sites in Durham that the State is investigating?
In addition, I'd like to know what notification is provided to property
owners close to the subject sites, not just when they are investigated, but
when they were discovered worthy of investigation.
If a property were "inside the plume", and it was known to the sellers in
a Real Estate transaction, that would certainly seem like a material fact.
Bill Anderson
INC Board
In a message dated 6/21/2009 7:11:26 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
mmr121570 at yahoo.com writes:
As stated in the article below, Sue Dayton (the one who first raised
concerns related to the drycleaning site/contamination and who is involved in
many ground water contamination issues) recently requested that the INC
permit her to make a presentation at an upcoming INC meeting. I am hopeful that
the INC board will invite her to do so, and perhaps Mr. Powers, and someone
from the city who deals with groundwater contamination. I would certainly
want to attend that meeting, and I know I am far from alone on this.
Can someone on the board advise as to whether or not such a meeting is
being arranged. I'm happy to help if you need me (though I'd have to do it via
email or phone from home).
Sincerely,
Melissa Rooney
--- On Sun, 6/21/09, John Schelp <bwatu at yahoo.com> wrote:
From: John Schelp <bwatu at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Durham INC] State investigating 11 chemical spill sites in
Durham (Herald-Sun)
To: inc-list at DurhamINC.org
Cc: "Email (all) City Council" <Council at DurhamNC.Gov>,
commissioners at durhamcountync.gov
Date: Sunday, June 21, 2009, 9:13 AM
Below is an article from today's Herald-Sun that contains some troubling
information about the State not informing neighborhoods of several chemical
spills in Durham.
Can Neighborhood Improvement Services please post the list of 11 chemical
spill sites in Durham that the State is investigating?
with appreciation,
John
****
Contaminants force church to move
By Ray Gronberg, Herald-Sun, 21 June 2009
State and city officials closed a West Club Boulevard church in May after
learning that the building it was using, a one-time dry cleaning store, is
the source of a chemical contamination.
An inspector from the city's Neighborhood Improvement Services Department
condemned the building at 1103 W. Club Blvd. on May 11 on the grounds that
fumes of a chemical called perchloroethylene were evident inside the
structure.
The chemical, also known as tetrachloroethylene, perc or PCE, is a common
dry cleaning solvent. Regulators consider it a "probable carcinogen," said
John Powers, head of the special remediation branch of the N.C. Department
of Environment and Natural Resources' Superfund section.
The order displaced the congregation of the Word of Faith Christian
Community. Condemnation means a building cannot be rented out until repairs
occur, said Rick Hester, acting assistant director of Neighborhood Improvement
Services.
The building's owner lives in Maryland and is aware of the order, Hester
said.
Powers' office spearheads a statewide effort to clean up contamination
linked to old dry cleaning stores. It's working on the West Club site and has
found there "some pretty high levels of contamination" affecting both soil
and groundwater, Powers said.
The plume of underground chemicals measures about 350 feet long by 190
feet wide and stretches north across Club Boulevard into the parking lot of
Northgate Mall, he said.
Measured levels in groundwater clocked in at levels in the "tens of
thousands of parts per billion," which are high relative to the state drinking
water standard for the chemical of 0.7 parts per billion, Powers said.
State regulators found and mapped the plume by doing a series of soil
borings and putting in monitoring wells.
The chemical appears to be moving slowly -- the dry cleaner that used to
occupy the site was last in business in 1974 -- but analysts are eager to do
"a little more investigation" on adjoining properties to the south and
east to see if it can be found there, Powers said.
The adjoining properties include another church -- the Triangle Family
Church on Watts Street -- and what Powers said were "at least three" houses on
the north end of Dollar Avenue.
"The primary risk is just on the source property," Powers said. "If we
find the contamination hasn't migrated [to the adjoining properties south and
east] that would close it off in that director and we feel everybody else
would be fine."
State officials have been in contact with the former occupants of the
building and the adjoining property owners, but have not gone beyond that to
notify the neighborhood. That's drawn criticism from an environmental group,
plus a posting by the group to at least one of Durham's many activist
e-mail lists.
"We feel this is a neighborhood issue that extends much further than those
property owners with land adjacent to the contaminated site," said Sue
Dayton, coordinator of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League's N.C.
Healthy Communities Project.
Dayton favors wider notification so residents can have a say in and watch
over any cleanup effort. "There's no question the state is going to do the
best they can to mitigate the site," she said. "However, there are
uncertainties involved here, especially when a plume of this magnitude has to be
cleaned up."
Powers said the state does in fact see to it that the site is cleaned up,
using a combination of techniques. Possibilities include digging up the
contaminated soil and injecting it with "agents that help break down
contaminants in the ground," he said.
Chemical cleanups in the past have also used pumps to extract underground
chemicals, but that method isn't as much in favor these days because "it's
been found a lot of contamination remains behind," he said.
Cleanups take awhile, and require at least a year of groundwater
monitoring. The state program is working with 219 sites, 11 of which including the
Club Boulevard site are in Durham.
The program began in 1997 but only has been going full speed since 2003,
Powers said. In the past couple of years it's graduated five sites with
lesser contaminations than the West Club Boulevard site's, and is poised to
finish with 10 more.
Dayton was responsible for the e-mail posting and said her group would
like to meet soon with city leaders, the Inter-Neighborhood Council, and
neighborhood groups in Trinity Park, Walltown and Trinity Heights to discuss
the problem.
Local real estate agent Ellen Dagenhart lives on Dollar Avenue a few doors
south of the affected area and said Friday that before Dayton sent out her
e-mail she'd known little about the matter.
"I had heard off and on over the years that there was contamination, but
had no idea that it was to the extent detailed in the letter," she said.
"It's scary to think about something like that."
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