[CPEO-BIF] Retrospective on CTS Asheville, North Carolina TCE contamination

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Don’t Drink the Water
In 1991, the EPA learned that there were toxins in a mountain stream. But nobody told the family who owned the property.

by Kevin Maurer
The Atlantic
March 5, 2015
	
Terry Rice lives in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina, about 10 miles outside of Asheville, in a cabin his grandfather built by hand. When his family bought the 15-acre property in 1974, they were drawn to the natural creeks that wound between the oak and pine trees. As a teenager, Rice would wade into the springs or hike in the woods, drinking from the cool water on hot summer days. The Rices drew their regular water supply from a spring just a few hundred yards behind the cabin.

In July 1999, a visiting friend, Bob Taylor, volunteered to clean out the spring. Taylor was shocked when he climbed down to the water and saw dead plants and an oily liquid near the surface. “All the vegetation was dying on the bank,” Taylor recalled recently. “We’re talking two to three feet up the bank and there was a black sheen on the water.” He also found green barrels from a factory that had once bordered the property.

Taylor reported the oily sheen and the diesel-like odor to the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NC DENR). Subsequent tests of neighboring wells and springs showed extremely high levels of the toxic chemical trichloroethylene (or TCE).

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/03/dont-drink-the-water/385837/#disqus_thread

--

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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