Homeowners call for immediate tests on soil Homeowners call for immediate tests on soil (December 05, 2003)

Residents want EPA to rid homes of TCE soon

By Julie O'Shea

A residents' group is pushing federal agents for a more thorough and extensive investigation of one of the city's Superfund sites where hundreds of family homes sit above toxic groundwater.

Moreover, the group, in a pointed letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Nov. 17, said it wants the contamination removed from the area as quickly as possible.

"The next phase should be more testing, and then the next phase should be cleanup. We don't want it to drag on for 10 years," said Ed Schlosser, a member of the Northeast Mountain View Advisory Council (NMAC) executive board whose home is built on top of the contaminated site under investigation.

EPA officials released the second phase of a draft work plan for the former GTE Government Systems site in late September. GTE, a defense contractor and telecommunications giant, polluted the site and is responsible for the cleanup.

The lengthy work plan details how the federal agency plans to continue testing the soil, soil-gas and groundwater for a range of toxic chemicals, including trichloroethene (TCE), a cancer-causing solvent that has been found in a couple of homes built on the site in 1997.

Testing -- which will be conducted in nearly 30 different locations around the area -- will take three weeks and hopefully begin early next year, EPA officials said.

The plan is slated to be discussed at the NMAC meeting Dec. 10 at 7 p.m. at Slater Elementary School, 325 Gladys Ave. EPA has declined comment on the group's letter.

"We are not ready to respond to specific comments," said Kathy Baylor, a hydrologist with EPA Region 9 in San Francisco.

The advisory council's biggest concern is the discovery of contaminants entering homes at the GTE site. While EPA announced earlier this year that TCE is 65 times more dangerous then previously thought, officials said residents aren't facing any immediate health risks.

Still, the advisory group is pushing for soil testing at additional locations.

"This is simply a recommendation to EPA from the community," Schlosser said. "The work plan has very little to say about soil testing."

In the Nov. 17 letter, the NMAC executive board wrote: "We do not want to see numerous phases of site investigation continuing for years but would rather see a comprehensive field investigation that leads to a final remediation plan that can be implemented within the year."

NMAC, which formed in April to oversee the federal cleanup efforts at various Superfund sites around the city, is an advisory body, meaning that while it can offer comments, it cannot make any official decisions.

The Mountain View City Council approved the GTE site for housing after two health risk studies predicted that TCE would not enter homes at levels dangerous to residents. However EPA didn't start indoor air testing until April 2000, three years after residents had moved into their homes. TCE was found in five of the seven homes initially tested. One home showed TCE levels that were considered potentially dangerous by federal standards.

Residents can review a copy of the GTE work plan at the city library at 585 Franklin St.

E-mail Julie O'Shea at joshea@mv-voice.com

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