LAT: San Gabriel Valley a Hotbed of TCE Contamination

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-toxic30sidemar30,1,7363409.story

From the Los Angeles Times

San Gabriel Valley a Hotbed of TCE Contamination

Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties are the most tainted from the toxic industrial solvent.
By Ralph Vartabedian
Times Staff Writer

March 30, 2006

Trichloroethylene contamination has hit almost every state, but none more widely than California. TCE has contaminated water supplies, indoor air near cleanup projects and the air in cities all around the state.

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The biggest areas of pollution are Los Angeles and Santa Clara counties.

More than 30 square miles of the San Gabriel Valley, about 18% of it, lie in one of four Superfund sites in which the main contaminants are TCE and its close chemical cousin perchloroethylene, or PCE, a dry-cleaning agent. Much of the contamination has been traced to defense contractors. Among the cities affected by the contamination are Azusa, West Covina, City of Industry, El Monte and Alhambra. The contaminated aquifer in the San Gabriel Valley supplies water for more than 1 million residents, though that water tapped by local agencies must meet the federal and state safety limit of 5 parts per billion, according to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

A cleanup effort over the last 20 years has cost $120 million and will continue for decades, according to Kathleen Salyer, a Superfund manager at the EPA. The operation pumps and filters 37 million gallons of polluted water at Whittier Narrows every day, ensuring it meets the 5-parts-per-billion TCE standard. The San Fernando Valley is also over a large TCE plume that is grouped into three separate Superfund sites that have cost $150 million to clean up so far. The plume extends for four miles and contaminates water supplies for 800,000 residents.

Much of the pollution was traced to the former Lockheed Corp. aircraft facilities in Burbank. Major litigation during the 1980s and 1990s, in which residents claimed they were poisoned, was settled out of court or dismissed. The pollution has forced water agencies to abandon half of their wells in the area. Although TCE still affects city development projects, Burbank Vice Mayor Todd Campbell said the pollution no longer stirred up significant community activism.

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I wonder if the fact that I lived in West Covina for over 12 years and drank and used tap water is the answer to why I've got continual and persistent rashes on my arms. I always blamed it on the water, in particular the fact that it was hard water, so maybe I was on the right track.

Perhaps this will help drop property values around there as well. My one bedroom apartment was, at the most, $850, until new owners took over and raised it to $1200. That's unconscionable in my book to be charging that much for a ONE bedroom apartment. That would suit me just fine to see the new owners stuck with a white elephant for a project. :)

I will also warn my mom, who lives on the border of Pasadena and Arcadia, on Michillinda. Perhaps she should get her water tested.

Industries use TCE as "degreaser fluid," to remove the oils used on parts in heavy industry. There are, of course, other purposes, such as "white out fluid."

A local defense industry, which used oil with PCBs, dumped the waste oils and degreaser fluids into a local water reservoir and a near-by lake on Richardson Hill in rural Delaware County, NY. The site is near one of the NYC water reservoirs. It took us over 20 years to get the EPA to fully address the situation; then it became a federal court "test case" of the laws that push responsibility on municipalities, rather than just the industry involved.

More, there is no way to pull back decades of water flow, carrying TCE from the dumps site (120 acres worth), to all the hamlets, towns, and cities along the way of the Delaware and Susquehanna Rivers. Nor is there technology that can be said to address all of the damage from the numerous toxic wastes dumped there.

I hate hearing about TCE.