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| Re: California bans *perchloroethylene*—dry-cleaning businesses severely hurt (188007) | |||
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Re: California bans *perchloroethylene*—dry-cleaning businesses severely hurt |
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Posted by orange blossom special on Thu Jan 25 23:58:02 2007, in response to Re: California bans *perchloroethylene*—dry-cleaning businesses severely hurt, posted by Olog-hai on Thu Jan 25 23:46:50 2007. Yea, part of it was the chemicals just get spilled into the back and parking lot. Then there was Lockheed who and a couple other companies who did the same thing. It must've been like China in the '60's. Every company just dumps all their waste into the storm trenches and air.TCE you say? I could've sworn there was mention of dry cleaning, must've been another story. ---- Federal records show the pollution dates back nearly 40 years to when Spellman Engineering, a business that cleaned electronics parts for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, dumped barrels of a potent degreasing solvent on its lot on Brookhaven Drive. Ultimately, at least 550 gallons of TCE soaked into the ground, penetrating as deeply as 40 feet and spreading outward for nearly 40 acres. Experts think the pollution continues to expand an acre a year. It wasn't until the early 1990s that environmental authorities discovered the plume of poison amid work to clean up the city property after removal of OUC equipment. By then, Spellman Engineering no longer existed, leaving authorities with nobody to blame or bill for an environmental disaster second only in Orlando to a mile-long underground plume of coal tar left by another long-defunct plant that converted coal to gas for stoves and lighting. A cleanup has been under way for nearly a decade at another, smaller TCE contamination near Orange Avenue and Colonial Drive. Orlando Sentinel Communications is paying 60 percent of costs, while the state Department of Environmental Protection and Orlando are paying 20 percent each. A suspected cancer-causing agent, TCE doesn't dissolve easily in water and sinks relentlessly through the ground. ---- Bizjournals The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that even five parts of TCE per billion gallons of water poses an unacceptable health risk -- an amount roughly equivalent to five drops of water in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. The only major increase was in the level of perchloroethylene, used for dry cleaning and as a degreaser, in a well adjacent the former Orlando Steam Laundry. At that particular well, the PCE level rose from 5,300 parts per billion in August 2003 to 6,600 parts per billion in March 2004. The Environmental Protection Agency has determined the maximum contaminant level for PCE as five parts per billion. Access to that well was restricted in August 2004, when contamination levels were recorded for the most recent report. After a decade-long dispute, the Orlando Sentinel was found to have dumped trichloroethene, also known as TCE -- a once widely used industrial cleaning solvent -- down storm and sewer drains and on land just north of the newspaper's downtown Orlando loading dock. ------ F#$@ing liberal media. Even with it's redneck columnists, comics, and not endorsing Kerry. |
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