[CPEO-BIF] "Google workers at Superfund site exposed, " Mountain View, California

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Google workers at Superfund site exposed

Susanne Rust and Matt Drange
Center for Investigative Reporting/San Francisco Chronicle
March 19, 2013

For at least two months, Google employees were exposed to excessive levels of a hazardous chemical after workers disabled a critical part of the ventilation system at the company's new satellite campus on a Superfund toxic waste site, records show.

>From mid-November to mid-January, levels of trichloroethylene, or TCE, exceeded concentrations considered safe by the federal Environmental Protection Agency at a Google office complex in Mountain View, according to a detailed report to the EPA obtained by the Center for Investigative Reporting. The buildings sit on a Superfund site 3 miles from the company's headquarters.

TCE, an industrial solvent used in making computer chips, is known to cause cancer and birth defects. The EPA recently adopted a more stringent safety threshold for TCE after finding it can cause cardiac abnormalities in developing fetuses.

Pregnant women who are exposed to low levels of the chemical during a crucial three-week period in their first trimester face an increased risk of having a baby born with holes in the heart, a 2011 EPA analysis found.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Google-workers-at-Superfund-site-exposed-4368421.php

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
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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