[CPEO-MEF] VOCs, CONTRACTORS: Grummans' Long Island (NY) plant

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Toxins from old Grumman site contaminating Bethpage

BY JENNIFER SMITH
Long Island Newsday (NY)
March 15, 2009

When Michael Barretta bought his tidy Bethpage house in 2006, he thought 
pollution from the nearby former Northrop Grumman defense complex had 
been cleaned up years ago.

But recent tests showed elevated levels of the industrial solvent 
trichloroethylene - a potential carcinogen also known as TCE - in the 
basements of four homes east of the Navy-owned property's 11th Street 
boundary. Contaminated soil vapor was also found under the basement 
slabs of two more houses.

Navy investigators have given residents carbon air filters to reduce TCE 
vapor levels immediately. They plan to install systems to vent gases 
from homes where concentrations exceed state indoor air standards. The 
problem appears to be limited to a roughly two-block area between Maple 
and Sycamore avenues and between 11th and Ninth streets.

The news has unsettled residents, who are dubious of the Navy's 
assurance that the state health guideline for TCE levels indoors - 5 
micrograms per cubic meter of air - is set many times lower than levels 
that cause health effects.

...

For the entire article, see
newsday.com/news/local/nassau/ny-livapo146070171mar15,0,115048.story

--


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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