Toxins for sale Toxins for sale (February 11, 2005)

Hunted by EPA, solvent still easy to find on store shelves

By Jon Wiener

A toxic solvent that private companies have spent millions of dollars to remove from Mountain View's ground water is more likely to enter homes through the front door than through cracks in the foundation, and government officials are starting to take notice.

The chemical trichloroethylene (TCE), a suspected carcinogen that is the subject of federally-mandated investigations and cleanups throughout the city, is a main ingredient in solvents available for purchase at home improvement and auto parts stores. One byproduct of the pollutant is also the chemical of choice for dry-cleaners throughout the city.

"People shouldn't be breathing this stuff. If we're going after polluters, we should do our best to remove it from our consumer products," said Lenny Siegel, a community activist and a national expert on TCE clean-up efforts.

New rules in the works?

Mountain View City Council member Greg Perry, a regular attendee at citizens group meetings that deal with TCE pollution, agreed with Siegel. He is pushing for stricter labeling requirements and has suggested he might even pursue a localized ban on the sale of TCE products. A county legislative committee is looking into the issue at Perry's behest.

Steve Hoeser, manager of Tap Plastics in downtown Mountain View, said that TCE is a lot more common than people realize, and it is not a cause for concern. Employees in his store work with the chemical on a daily basis, and an entire display is dedicated to cans of acrylic cements made from TCE and other chemicals.

Hoeser said he is fine with stricter labeling standards and already encourages people to take precautions while using any solvents, but talk of outlawing the sale of TCE concerns him.

"If they did ban it or something, we would have to leave town. We use it that regularly," said Hoeser.

Concerns about TCE's health effects have led to its removal from products like Wite-Out and certain auto degreasers. Years of semiconductor manufacturing are primarily responsible for much of the local ground-water contamination. Now, TCE and its byproducts can be found in many general-purpose solvents.

In addition to the acrylic cement sold at Tap Plastics, auto parts stores still carry general-purpose degreasers that contain these chemicals, despite a state law banning the sale of TCE products specific to auto repair. Many of them do not contain TCE but a byproduct known as "Perc," listed on labels as perchloroethylene or tetrachloroethylene.

The Mountain View fire marshal maintains a registry of businesses in the city that store more than 10 gallons of hazardous chemicals on site. Dry cleaners using "Perc" make up a large portion of that list.

Health risks disputed

Just how dangerous is TCE? Ultimately, the answer depends on the amount and duration of exposure. But U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials believe that any health risks to Mountain View residents only exist in a few locations and, even there, would take decades of constant exposure to materialize.

But they also say the products are to blame for many positive test results during their search for homes where the gas is seeping into the air above contaminated ground water.

John Moody oversees the testing in Whisman Station homes for the EPA. He said that in two of the three homes where they found contamination, it could be traced to consumer products rather than a larger, longer-term source.

"One of the houses where they were using it in the home, they actually gave me a can of it and said, 'Is this what you're talking about?'" said Moody.

Moody is so unconcerned about the health risks that he now keeps the can on his desk at the EPA's San Francisco office. The levels found in homes where TCE products are used do not present immediate risks to public health, he added.

"If a child were living in that home every day for 30 years, then we'd expect to have problems," he said.

As far as the EPA is concerned, the biggest problem posed by TCE products is not their health effects but the interference with testing efforts.

Peter Strauss, a toxicologist with the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, said that the health risk is the same, whether the TCE is in consumer products or in the ground water below a home. The only real difference between the two is that people choose to expose themselves to one of them, albeit often unknowingly, he added.

"You assume that people make voluntary choices. The degree of labeling makes it voluntary rather than involuntary," said Strauss. "That is a major factor in a community accepting risk."

E-mail Jon Wiener at jwiener@mv-voice.com

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