[Durham INC] Reply from NIS? State investigating 11 chemical spill sites in Durham (Herald-Sun)

[John Schelp]

Thank you, Rick. It's good to see you working with the State on the chemical contamination at 1103 Club Blvd, as outlined in the article below.

A number of folks have expressed an interest in knowing the eleven site locations here in Durham. So, it would be helpful to see the full list posted publicly.

Community residents can then know where the contaminated sites are located. Hopefully, we can eventually find out what steps are being taken to mitigate each site.

with appreciation,
John

****

> John, 
> 
> This is not something that we would have but Burt is
> talking with the
> state folks about where the list might be found.  We
> have nothing to do
> with chemicals.  Soon as we know something I will post
> whatever info we find.
> 
> Rick Hester
> NIS Manager
> Neighborhood Improvement Services


> Any news from Neighborhood Improvement Services about when
> they might
> post the list of 11 chemical spill sites in Durham that the
> State is investigating?
> 
> many thanks,
> John
> 
> ****
> 
> Date: Sunday, June 21, 2009, 9:13 AM
> 
> Below is an article from [Sunday'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."