[CPEO-BIF] IBM Endicott TCE plume - editorial

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Long-term risk of toxic plume must be assessed
Report shows extent of TCE at former IBM site

Editorial
Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin
June 7, 2014

Even after Thomas Watson Sr. moved IBM Corp. headquarters to New York  
City, the corporate titan would look forward to his regular jaunts to  
Endicott. He cherished and nurtured the people and factory in  
Endicott during his long reign as chairman and chief executive at  
what was one of the world’s most profitable and well-regarded companies.

Now, more than half-century after Watson Sr.’s death, comes the  
revelation that chemicals regularly used at his beloved production  
facility were leaking into the ground with regularity. That, however,  
was a different era. Few knew the potential threat from  
trichloroethylene (TCE), a solvent used in the production process at  
IBM and other companies from 1930 through at least the late 1970s.

For much of the time the chemical was in use in Endicott and  
elsewhere, it was a far more innocent era, when the environmental  
movement was in its infancy, if it existed at all. For the larger  
Southern Tier community, as long as IBM was the backbone of the local  
economy, the company could do almost no wrong. Endicott was proud to  
call itself the birthplace and home to one of the most respected  
companies on the planet. Other communities were justifiably envious.

...

For the entire editorial, see
http://www.pressconnects.com/article/20140608/VIEWPOINTS/306080007/ 
Editorial-Long-term-risk-of-toxic-plume-must-be-assessed

--

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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