[CPEO-BIF] TCE Found Inside Mountain View Offices

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

[Note: This is the area featured by EPA in some of the original
brochures on the Superfund Redevelopment Initiative.  - LS]

Toxic Gas Enters Offices 

Through electrical conduits and cracks in the floor, TCE moves from
ground water into buildings 

By Justin Scheck and Tamar Lando
Mountain View Voice
August 29, 2003

Toxic gas is moving out of the ground and into a group of office
buildings in north Mountain View. 

According to data released this month by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), the air in at least five separate office
developments off Middlefield Road has high enough levels of a cancer-
causing solvent to warrant immediate action. 

EPA officials say that health risks are long term; the chemical vapors
do not present an immediate danger, but could raise the odds that a
longtime worker in these buildings will get cancer at some point in his
or her life. The agency is therefore trying to lower TCE levels in the
offices as quickly as possible, at the same time working on a long-term
plan to reduce the levels of chemicals that can enter buildings. 

In the meantime, environmental advocates are saying that no amount of
cancer-causing chemicals -- even at a barely detectable level -- is
safe; they want EPA to speed up the cleanup of contaminated ground water
and to ensure that the buildings are toxin free.

...

for the entire story, see

http://www.mv-voice.com/thisweek/2003_08_29.toxics.html

Lenny Siegel
-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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