Editorial Editorial (July 09, 2004)

EPA chasing TCE vapor trail

Residents who live near Mountain View's now infamous MEW site might want to start paying more attention to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) seemingly never-ending search for the toxic chemical trichloroethene (TCE), a cancer-causing solvent.

Since 1988, the MEW site, bordered by East Middlefield and North Whisman Roads, Ellis Street, and Highway 101, has been the focus of a major EPA effort to eradicate TCE from the area once inhabited by Fairchild Semiconductor, Raytheon and Intel. Now the EPA is in the process of reviewing its efforts to clean up the soil and ground water at the MEW site, and in the process has found another disturbing trend -- that TCE vapor is popping up in unexpected places.

The discovery means that while the EPA is reasonably pleased with its performance in cleaning up soil and water contaminated by TCE, it must virtually start all over again with TCE vapor, which was most recently detected in high quantities in a study of four homes on North Whisman Road, across from the MEW site.

The high dosage of TCE vapor was measured at a level of 3.7 and 2.7 micrograms per cubic meter in one home with an earthen cellar. Three other homes in the study, all with concrete basements, recorded safe readings. But the results in the earthen cellar home were troubling, far in excess of the 0.017 level deemed safe by the EPA.

Following the test, the EPA put out a call for residents just west of Whisman Road to voluntarily agree to have their homes tested. This is a positive step (so far seven have signed up), but we suggest that the agency make a major effort to take a much larger sample.

At this stage of the game, more than a decade after the first discovery of TCE was made at the MEW site, it is time for the EPA to launch a much more aggressive effort to pin down how far outside the MEW area the underground toxic plume of TCE has migrated. The EPA should make sure that hundreds of homes here are tested, as well as those that sit directly over the toxic plume.

The EPA is the only agency that has the power to assess the TCE threat in the Whisman neighborhood, and bring it under control. Now the agency is moving in the right direction, but at this point, there is definitely a need for more speed.

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