[CPEO-BIF] Mitigating TCE vapors in Elmwood Park, St. Louis County, Missouri

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Work starts to clear Elmwood Park of toxic gas

By Blythe Bernhard
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO)
February 24, 2014

First it was the lack of blooms on her rose bushes in the late 1980s.  
Then Mary Branch noticed her hair drying out and hives popping up on  
her arms. Now she blames the changes on contaminated groundwater  
underneath the Elmwood Park neighborhood in north St. Louis County  
where she has lived since 1978.

“I didn’t know what was going on,” said Branch, 67. “We never knew  
anybody was dumping toxic chemicals.”

Spills of the industrial chemical trichloroethylene, or TCE, from the  
Missouri Metals site at 9970 Page Ave. were first reported in the  
1980s. By 1998, the chemical linked to cancer and other health risks  
was detected in groundwater at the site and in adjoining Elmwood  
Park. The groundwater is not used for tap water but the chemical can  
seep into homes through gases in the soil.

Before 2012, it was believed that the levels of TCE in odorless  
vapors found in some Elmwood Park basements did not pose a health  
risk to residents. But based on new research, the Environmental  
Protection Agency tightened the guidelines for safe exposures. Follow- 
up testing last year found unhealthy levels of TCE in five homes and  
one apartment in the predominantly black community between Olivette  
and Overland.

..,.

For the entire article, see
http://www.stltoday.com/lifestyles/work-starts-to-clear-elmwood-park- 
of-toxic-gas/article_fa0d5f2d-68c8-5e82-aa70-90df3b475135.html

--

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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