[CPEO-BIF] Google's indoor air problem, Mountain View, California

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Toxic vapors found in Google offices
TCE vapors reach unacceptable levels; efforts to remedy it in progress

By Daniel DeBolt
Mountain View Voice (CA)
February 21, 2013

After a carcinogen was found to be seeping up from contaminated soil  
into buildings, Google is working to protect employees from a mess  
left behind by the Valley's earliest tech companies.

Over 1,000 Googlers moved into "the Quad" near Whisman Road and  
Middlefield Road in June of 2012, an area once home to Fairchild and  
Intel, among others. Those companies used TCE (trichloroethylene) as  
a solvent in the manufacturing of the first silicon computer chips,  
leaving behind a massive plume of contaminated groundwater discovered  
in 1981 -- one that may take many more decades to clean up.

Though regularly tested since 2003, in December Google's new  
buildings at 369 and 379 Whisman Road were found for the first time  
to have TCE vapors above the Environmental Protection Agency's indoor  
screening level, said Alana Lee, project manager for the EPA. The  
results were blamed on building modifications made for Google that  
created a pathways through the floor for the vapors to seep into  
parts of the buildings.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.mv-voice.com/news/show_story.php?id=6659&e=y

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
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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