NDCA

ITHACA — Test results showing TCE in ambient air near South Hill homes, and the state’s response that the results may be a fluke, raise questions about the reliability of the testing itself.

Emerson found trichloroethylene, or TCE, at levels ranging from 1.2 to 29.5 micrograms per cubic meter in 12 locations outside homes downhill and north of its factory on South Hill.

Neither Emerson nor the state have ever found TCE in outside air at these levels, and only three other such cases have been reported in New York state.

Neither Emerson nor the state officials can explain why tests for TCE and other volatile organic compounds sometimes come back with wildly different readings.

Emerson and state officials from the departments of Health and Environmental Conservation examined the canisters, checked with the lab and called for immediate re-testing to see whether the unusually high readings persist.

Most re-testing is scheduled for next week.

Karen Cahill, regional engineer with the DEC and project manager for all the South Hill environmental investigations, cited another unusually high test result on Ithaca’s South Hill that boggles Emerson and the state: a manhole near the corner of Turner Place and Columbia was double-tested with two canisters at the exact same location for the exact same 24-hour period.

One came back at 18,900 micrograms per cubic meter. The other came back 50.8.

A third test showed TCE at 39.3.

The indoor air measurement that the Department of Health considers unsafe is 5 micrograms per cubic meeter and Emerson has been mitigated homes with indoor readings of 0.8.

Knowledge about soil vapor intrusion is relatively limited, as state agencies have only recently begun to see it as a health risk.

With high levels of exposure, such as among workers who used it industrially, TCE is considered a likely carcinogen. Recent studies in the U.K. also link TCE with Parkinson’s.

There is very little research about the health impacts of long-term, low-level exposure.

Gregg Townsend, regional hazardous waste remediation engineer with the DEC, said New York state is on the cutting edge of the soil vapor intrusion phenomenon, but even New York has only been mitigating soil vapor for about 10 years.

Some contamination has come from the Emerson Power Transmission site, which was previously owned by Morse Chain. Additional testing last summer shows that contamination is also entering the South Hill neighborhood through the NCR sewer, which runs along South Aurora Street. Like many companies throughout the country, both Morse Chain and National Cash Register used degreasing solvents until the 1970s.

Homes downhill from Emerson have been tested for vapor intrusion in phases. Phase six testing is ongoing — soil vapor tests outside homes are complete, but Emerson and the state have not yet decided which homes will get indoor testing, Cahill said.

Delay in testing, delay in getting tests results and reliability of test results are exactly the issues that concern Peter Penniman, general manager of PPM Homes. Penniman manages two rental properties on South Hill that required TCE mitigation.

Penniman was informed that the properties needed mitigation in the spring of 2006. Emerson installed a system in summer 2006 but informed Penniman in January 2007 that the system was incomplete and needed additional work.

“We were very disappointed about the time, the delay,” he said.

Concerned about the presence of TCE in their home, Penniman’s tenants asked and he agreed, that if the post-mitigation TCE reading in their home was higher than 0.8, they could break their lease and move.

Testing was done in September 2007 and Penniman and his tenants were told the results would be back by October. They only got the results this week.

The indoor air reading was 1.6.

“Why does it take four months to figure that out?” he asked.

As they’ve done with the manhole and the ambient air, Emerson and the state are testing again to see if the level goes down. As with those tests, they likely won’t be able to explain why a reading would go down or up.

A re-test is planned for next week and Penniman hopes, again, for the test results to be back in a month.

“Given that there are so many questions, it just seems like they should be moving more quickly,” Penniman said.

It was a sentiment shared by many Ithacans and apparently understood by state officials at a meeting Thursday night in Ithaca Town Hall.

Almost all of the officials made comments about moving beyond investigation to remediation, dealing immediately with needed mitigation and testing homes without waiting for a responsible party.

“We need to get out of the investigation phase. We’ve been in that phase a long time. We need to get on to the next phase,” Townsend said.

Carl Cuipylo, a DEC geologist, explained that investigations last summer at Emerson found two locations with existing sources of contamination that Emerson will be required to clean up this year.

“It’s not just gonna be another investigation. We found things we want them to clean up,” he said.

Common Council alderwomen Jennifer Dotson, D-1st; Maria Coles, D-1st; and Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton, D-125th, all said Friday that they heard and appreciated a change in policy and in tone at the meeting.

“I think there was good discussion about, ‘How are we gonna make sure that we don’t lapse back into any kind of pattern of not paying attention or not following up or not notifying the public about how it’s going?’” Lifton said. “We want regular communication, regular notification. We want to be assured in the months and years ahead that this issue continues to be monitored and dealt with.”

County legislator Pam Mackesey, D-City of Ithaca, was slightly less optimistic.

“There have been so many promises for so long, it’s hard to get too excited about it,” she said. “It did feel as if they were at least mouthing the concern that everybody who lives here has had that something needs to happen, but . . . we need to see if anything different actually happens six months or a year from now.”

kgashler@ithacajournal.com