March 9, 2006

By Diane Chiddister

A report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency concluded that contaminants found on Vernay Laboratories’ Dayton Street facility and in area groundwater pose “little health risk” to neighbors or workers at this time.

However, the report, which was released in February, also concluded that the contamination could, in the future, cause an “unacceptable risk” to workers on the site or those who drink polluted water, if the contamination is not remediated.

“Current threats to people’s health are low,” said the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) report, which estimated the future health risk to exceed the EPA’s safety limit of one cancer case in 10,000 exposed individuals. According to the report, that risk means that if 10,000 people were exposed to the contamination for a lifetime of 70 years, more than one additional person would get cancer than would otherwise happen in the area.

“That kind of health risk is unacceptable and means Vernay will have to do something to clean up or contain the pollution or otherwise limit potential exposure,” the report stated.

People need to be aware that the estimated risk does not mean that “someone is being exposed to that risk now,” said EPA Project Coordinator Trish Polston of EPA’s Region 5 in Chicago, which oversees the investigation and cleanup. “It means if that would happen, it would not be acceptable.”

Polston said that Vernay has been timely and cooperative in its cleanup efforts.

“I think the quality of the work they do is good,” Polston said in a phone interview last week.

Vernay President and CEO Tom Allen declined to comment for this article, saying on Monday that it is “inappropriate” to discuss the EPA report since the process is ongoing.

In 2002 Vernay announced that it would close its two Dayton Street plants and relocate its production facilities to plants in Georgia and South Carolina. At the time, company officials linked the move to a changing customer base, excess manufacturing space in its North American facilities and the demands of the EPA cleanup effort at the Dayton Street site.

Vernay’s larger Dayton Street plant closed in the summer of 2003 and the smaller plants shuttered its doors in early 2005. The company’s headquarters remain in Yellow Springs.

According to the EPA report, the agency has completed its four-year investigation into pollution in and around Vernay Laboratories.

The report identifies three volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, that are causing the contamination. The VOCs are tetrachloroethylene, known as PCE, trichloroethylene, or TCE, and 1,2-dichloropropane, or 1,2-DCP.

The report states that VOCs are “hazardous chemicals that evaporate easily, giving off vapors, some of which can be dangerous if inhaled in sufficient quantities. They also tend to dissolve in ground water (underground supplies of fresh water).”

Vernay Laboratories, founded by Sergius Vernet in the 1930s, manufactures molded rubber parts for the automotive, appliance and medical equipment markets. According to the report, PCE and TCE are used as metal degreasers in manufacturing, while 1,2-DCP was a commonly used pesticide in the past.

A lawsuit brought by a group of neighbors against Vernay in 2001 charged that the company improperly disposed of hazardous wastes over a period of time beginning in the 1950s. The lawsuit was settled in 2002.

“These chemicals not only polluted soil at the Vernay plant but also got in the ground water underneath the property and formed ‘plumes’ (bodies of contaminated water),” the report stated.

The RCRA investigation followed a legal agreement that Vernay signed in 2002 with the EPA requiring the company to study and address contamination on and around its 10-acre facility on Dayton Street. The agreement was part of the settlement of the lawsuit of the neighbors, who requested that the U.S. EPA oversee cleanup efforts.

According to the report, the investigation of contamination involved two phases in which environmental contractors hired by Vernay gathered information about soil and groundwater contamination, taking soil borings in and around the plant and monitoring groundwater wells.

The investigation concluded that VOCs have not reached the deep Brassfield Aquifer and further tests will not be done there, according to the report. However, pollution was found in the upper portions of the Cedarville Aquifer, which lies 20 to 100 feet below ground surface.

Because of the groundwater sampling, the report stated, “officials have a good idea of the extent of contamination in the ground water beneath the Vernay property and in the adjacent residential area. Sample results thus far suggest the plumes are not expanding very much.”

The investigators concluded that it is “likely” that the spread of the plumes was slowed by Vernay’s installation of two “capture wells” on its property that pumped groundwater to the surface and treated it.

According to the report, investigators identified three main ways that people could be exposed to harmful pollution currently. These “exposure pathways” include direct contact with contaminated soil, breathing contaminated water vapors seeping through cracks in buildings and swallowing contaminated groundwater.

Investigators concluded that current health risks are low because none of these exposure pathways seems likely to take place. The Vernay property is either grass-covered or paved, limiting the possibility that soil would be “stirred up either by work or wind.”

The report also stated that off the site, existing private wells contain no contamination or low levels that fall within EPA safety guidelines. A survey of area wells found 20 private wells in the neighborhood, the survey stated, with most not in use or used only for “non-potable” purposes. With the owners’ permission, three wells were closed by Vernay and the Greene County Combined Health District, and the homes were hooked up to municipal water.

However, future risks include the possibility that workers on the Vernay site could be exposed to unsafe levels of pollution.

In addition, the report stated, “if the chemicals remain unaddressed in soil and ground water, nearby residents could be exposed to pollutants through existing private wells or new wells drilled into the area. While most people drink municipal water, it is possible water from existing or new private wells could expose people to the VOCs.”

According to the report, the Vernay cleanup now enters a new phase. The company has until mid-June to submit to the EPA a more detailed groundwater analysis and report on whether the plumes are expanding.

Once the EPA approves that report, Vernay will have six months to submit a proposed cleanup plan, which the EPA will either accept or replace with its own.

At that time, the EPA will present the approved cleanup plan to the public, through the media, for review and comment for a 45-day period, according to Polston.

At that point, Vernay will design and then implement the cleanup work, the report stated.

Contact: dchiddister@ysnews.com