[CPEO-MEF] VOCs: "Air testing planned for neighborhood adjacent to contaminated former missile plant in Burlington, " NC

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Air testing planned for neighborhood adjacent to contaminated former missile plant in Burlington
Extent of toxic solvents still unknown; new round of testing to begin

By Lisa Sorg
NC Policy Watch
January 14, 2022

Environmental testing could restart as early as next month at a former Army missile plant in East Burlington, the next step in cleaning up widespread contamination that has burdened a Black and Latinx neighborhood for more than 30 years.

While the sampling plan does not cover the cleanup, the results will guide the future removal or treatment of the contamination. That process will likely take at least another decade.

In a two-part story [2] last fall, Policy Watch reported on the inertia [3] and negligence that had delayed work at the Tarheel Army Missile Plant. Since the mid-1990s, the military, which is responsible for groundwater and some surface water contamination, has spent $2 million on a cleanup. Those efforts have largely failed, and untold amounts of toxic solvents remain, both onsite and beneath the neighborhood. 

The plant, which operated from the 1950s until 1992, includes more than a dozen buildings on 22 acres near the corner of Church Street and Graham-Hopedale Road. The property abuts six duplexes and two single-family homes. Another half dozen duplexes face the facility. At least six more households lie within the path of groundwater contamination, which has also polluted a stream that eventually feeds the Haw River. As Policy Watch previously reported, neighborhood residents have complained that runoff from the plant — possibly contaminated — floods their yards.

…

For the entire article, see
https://ncpolicywatch.com/2022/01/14/air-testing-planned-for-neighborhood-adjacent-to-contaminated-former-missile-plant-in-burlington/print/

—

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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