January 22, 2003

YSI says no cleanup needed at former High St. building

YSI says no cleanup neededat former High St. buildingAn environmental investigation at YSI Incorporated’s former High Street building indicates that contaminants are below actionable levels and that YSI will not be responsible for cleaning up in the area, officials from YSI said during a meeting on the investigation Jan. 13.

One chemical, 1,1,1-trichloroethene (TCE), had a slightly elevated groundwater concentration, but it was not used by YSI and therefore was not the company’s responsibility to remediate, said Lisa Abel, YSI’s director of corporate responsibility.

YSI’s investigation at its former High Street building was included in a consent order and settlement between the company and the state of Ohio. The state filed a lawsuit in 2002 against the company, claiming that YSI violated Ohio’s hazardous waste and water pollution laws and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. The violations included charges that YSI improperly transported and stored isopropyl alcohol at the High Street building during a construction project at its Brannum Lane campus.

YSI occupied the High Street building from 1971 and 1995. In 2001, the company sold the building to Patrick Ertel for his publishing business, Antique Power. The building also now houses the gym Curves.

Last November YSI took samples from the floor of the building and soil and groundwater samples on all four sides of the building. The results, which came back two weeks ago, showed 11 volatile organic compounds and one metal existing below the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum contaminant levels (MCL) in all five of the sampling locations, according to a fact sheet distributed by YSI at the meeting.

The MCL in the soil for most of the chemicals hovered around either 350 or over 1,000 parts per billion (ppb). The 11 chemicals found in the soil at the site were less than 100 ppb, the test results reported in the fact sheet show.

Those 11 chemicals are tetrachloroethene, 1,1,1-trichloroethane, trichloroethene, freon 113, acetone, bromodichloromethane, bromoform, chloroform, chloromethane, dibromochloromethane and barium.

Test results found that all contaminants in the groundwater on the property except TCE were below the MCL for water-soluble chemicals.

TCE was found at 10 ppb, above its MCL of 5 ppb, in the groundwater in the alley to the east of the facility, the fact sheet said.

Abel and YSI president and CEO Rick Omlor said that according to company records and interviews with YSI employees, YSI never used TCE.

Because TCE was not found in the soil at High Street, and it is not a breakdown product of any of the chemicals used at the facility, YSI officials and Ohio EPA representatives said that the High Street facility is not the source of the TCE in the water.

“The presence of TCE is puzzling because it was never used at YSI, though it is an industrial solvent,” Abel said.

Debora Depweg, an environmental specialist with the Ohio EPA Division of Hazardous Waste Management who is one of two agency officials overseeing YSI’s investigation, said that the Ohio EPA could not direct YSI to remediate contamination from an outside source and would only supervise the activities that are directly linked to the YSI investigation.

“We can share the information with others in the area, but we will not necessarily initiate an independent investigation,” she said. “Our representatives can only cover the activities YSI was involved in.”

A separate but similar investigation that does involve TCE contamination is still ongoing at Vernay Laboratories’ Dayton Street facility, several blocks east of the High Street building.

Vernay outlined the groundwater plume for TCE that extends west of the Dayton Street plants in its latest cleanup report in December. According to Doug Fisher, Vernay’s environmental and safety manager, though the plume delineation is not final, current data shows the contamination extends east, halfway between Wright and Green Streets, which does not implicate Vernay as the source of the TCE.

Last year, Vernay installed several geoprobes along Green Street that showed the contamination had not reached that far east, Fisher said. However, Vernay is still installing more monitoring wells on both Wright and Green Streets to “continue to more accurately depict our plume,” he said. The wells will also be used for future monitoring purposes in case the current groundwater contamination should migrate, he said.

“I’m really comfortable saying that our investigation leads us to believe our plume doesn’t extend that far east,” he said. “Our plume ends somewhere west of Green Street.”

The data on the High Street investigation is summarized in a fact sheet and will be available in the Yellow Springs Library, the Glen Helen Ecology Institute library and online at www.ysi.com/areawells. The public will be able to comment on the report in late February or early March before it is sent to the Ohio EPA for final approval.

During last week’s meeting, YSI officials offered additional information on the investigation. Last month, the Ohio EPA approved YSI’s Description of Current Conditions report. YSI is now preparing a report summarizing the investigation to date as well as the remaining work. The report will be available for public comment at the end of February or early March.

YSI officials also said that the company also made available for public review a comprehensive archive of documents detailing the company’s activities and audits over the past several decades. The documents were placed in the library and in the Glen Helen Building last month.

—Lauren Heaton