[CPEO-BIF] TCE "detected in air at Worcester’s Greenwood Gardens" (Massachusetts)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Trace of chemical solvent detected in air at Worcester’s Greenwood Gardens


By Cyrus Moulton 
Worcester Telegram & Gazette (MA) 
March 2, 2018 
  	
WORCESTER - Trace, non-harmful levels of a chemical solvent have been detected in the air at the Greenwood Gardens housing complex, a city official said Thursday. Now the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and the city will be working on a plan to figure out how it got there.

“The good news is there’s nothing to be alarmed about,” said Paul J. Moosey, commissioner of public works and parks. “But the bad news is that if there is any trace (of the chemical), MassDEP is going to be concerned that there is a ‘pathway’ ... it begs the question of where did those trace amounts come from.”

The Department of Public Works and the Worcester Housing Authority announced in early January that they were testing the air at 30 units of the Greenwood Gardens public housing complex, a state-aided 62-unit housing complex primarily for the elderly, after chemicals including the solvent trichloroethane (TCE) were found in the property’s groundwater. The complex is located next to the old Greenwood Street landfill, but drinking water is not affected as the complex is on a public water supply.

But because TCE evaporates easily, officials were concerned that the chemical may be evaporating from the groundwater and seeping into the air of the homes. Exposure to TCE risks the development of a fetus in the first eight weeks of pregnancy, a recent study on rats has found.

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.telegram.com/news/20180302/trace-of-chemical-solvent-detected-in-air-at-worcesters-greenwood-gardens

--

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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