[CPEO-BIF] EPA's plan for the Meeker Avenue vapor intrusion investigation, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

THE EPA PLANS TO EVALUATE OVER 1,000 POTENTIALLY IMPACTED PROPERTIES WITHIN THE MEEKER AVENUE PLUME SUPERFUND SITE

by Erin Conlon
Greenpointers (Brooklyn, NY)
April 30, 2024

The Meeker Avenue Plume has been a designated federal Superfund site for two years, and earlier this month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shared some of their initial findings as well as a planned proposal for site evaluation, protection, and cleanup during a public meeting at St. Stanislaus Kostka Lower Church.

Trichloroethylene (TCE) and Tetrachloroethylene (PCE) have been identified as the main contaminants of concern, which the EPA considers both linked to cancer and neurological diseases, with low levels of TCE exposure in pregnant women also increasing the risk of cardiac birth defects. In this case, the contaminants were determined through sampling soil vapor and indoor air concentrations of properties determined to have “high-end exposure conditions.”

As part of their mitigation efforts, the EPA has identified over 1,000 properties within their site study area that may be impacted. Factors like building conditions and the level of contamination beneath and near the structure can affect the likelihood of vapor intrusion; when contaminants are in the soil and groundwater, they can be released as gasses and sucked up into buildings, then dispersed throughout the air. The EPA has been conducting air sampling since late 2022, and presently have evaluated 18 residential structures, 11 public housing buildings, and one public school (none were found to need vapor mitigation, but monitoring should continue at residences), plus 18 additional properties this spring.

…

For the entire article, see
https://greenpointers.com/2024/04/30/the-epa-plans-to-evaluate-over-1000-potentially-impacted-properties-within-the-meeker-avenue-plume-superfund-site/

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)

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