Posted by
Visions from the Right on Thursday, September 27, 2012 11:11:40 AM
Tuesday’s report by the local TV station (WLOS) has ignited the locals’ once again. WLOS said 129 homes would be put on city water, with a city loan of $3,000,000.
The CTS site (1970’s) in Asheville, NC, has contaminated the groundwater with trichloroethylene (TCE), used for cleaning prior to electroplating. Contamination has purportedly caused at least 50 local people (within mile CTS) to get cancer. To date, any true cases have never been linked directly with TCE exposure.
In 1985, EPA conducted a Preliminary Assessment of CTS, but found no evidence of contamination. No further action was recommended.
In 1991, after CTS notified NC of contamination, EPA conducted a sampling investigation and discovered some chlorinated solvents. However, this investigation failed to find any widespread problem.
In 1993, NC added CTS to their Inactive Hazardous Waste Site Priority list for further investigation.
In 1999, following a complaint from NCDENR citing a spring supplying water to two homes next to CTS. There was TCE detected at two residential wells. EPA responded with bottled water to the affected families.
In 2001, and again in 2006, EPA conducted more in-depth investigations of the site. In both instances, it concluded CTS did not qualify for the National Priorities List (NPL). Nevertheless, a Soil Vapor Extraction System (SVE) was started in 2006, and TCE-laden groundwater was aerated.
In 2008, EPA began to monitor all wells quarterly, until it was no longer deemed necessary. From monitoring, the EPA did not detected any additional TCEs. However in 2009, EPA sampled a residential well not on the monitoring network, and found it to contain TCE. EPA supplied the residents with bottled water.
In March of 2012, the old CTS of Asheville property on Mills Gap Road was officially named a Superfund site, and placed on the NPL List. About that time, the EPA and CTS reached an agreement to put water filters in the homes, affected by ground and surface water contaminated by any chemicals used on the site.
Bottom line—the Time Weighted Average (TWA) per the ACGIH (in 1990) was 50 ppm. Today, that number has been reduced to <0.5 ppb, mainly due to the lower detection ability of new equipment. Not because of additional toxicity. Not because of any TCE cancer deaths (even though many TCE sites nationwide have been labeled Superfund). 73 in California alone, have used TCE.
In fact, TCE has never been the primary culprit in any cancer death, despite the millions who have been exposed, and even ingested TCE in small quantities. The ACGIH currently lists TCE as: “Not suspected to be a human carcinogen”.
Most forget TCE was used as a gas anesthetic in the 50’s and 60’s. Millions have breathed 1% TCE through self-administered analgesia (i.e., childbirth difficulties). No cancer TCE-related deaths. No TCE-related problems. No complaints. Millions assisted with pain during childbirth.
EPA billed CTS $6.5 million for cleanup costs, had at least $1M manpower costs, site remediation, SVE, >10 site visits w/crews of >8, ‘clean’ water, analyses, and other costs.
TCE is not a chemical for which to be played. Of course, chemicals like “di-hydrogen oxide” can cause breathing problems, global warming, and even death with ingestion of >70 gallons in a day. It took over 25 years for the EPA to proclaim CTS a Superfund Site, and over $7 million in wasted expenditures.
This, from a rogue Chemical Engineer who lives within 1 mile of this CTS site. Evidently, raw unbridled emotions can be a powerful thing.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Roeten can be reached at roetenks@charter.net.