[CPEO-BIF] "Chemical industry targets Mountain View [California] TCE cleanup"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Chemical industry targets Mountain View TCE cleanup
Superfund site's high mitigation costs cited by industry; Trump asked to roll back EPA standards

by Mark Noack
Mountain View Voice (CA)
April 21, 2017

President Donald Trump's promise to bring back jobs by axing regulations is targeting environmental protections on Mountain View's contaminated, yet still valuable, real estate. In recent days, a chemical industry lobbying group is nudging federal officials to gut safety standards for trichloroethylene (TCE), citing the high costs associated with one of Mountain View's Superfund sites. 

A March 31 letter sent by the American Chemistry Council singles out Mountain View's Middlefield-Ellis-Whisman (MEW) Superfund site as an example of environmental remediation that has become a money pit. The letter criticizes 2014 guidelines by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to expand the area being monitored for TCE vapor intrusion in Mountain View, estimating it will cost $19 million over the next 30 years. By scaling back these standards, the letter argues, contaminated land could more easily be redeveloped and brought back into productive use. 

But local environmental advocates say the call to deregulate TCE, a carcinogenic chemical that is contaminating groundwater in parts of Mountain View, is a ruse that won't bring back manufacturing jobs. They suspect the real motive is to reduce costs for chemical manufacturers and companies obligated to clean up toxic sites.

…

For the entire article, see
https://www.mv-voice.com/news/2017/04/21/chemical-industry-targets-mountain-view-tce-cleanup

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650/961-8918 
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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