12 More Years to Clean Up Military Base

Posted on July 24, 2008 by David Austin

According to a plan put forth by environmental and military officials, it will take another twelve years to finish cleaning up the contamination of ground water near the former Myrtle Beach Air Force Base.  This extended time-line  for cleaning out the cancer-causing contamination was criticized by area residents because there is a faster, though more expensive, way of completing the clean-up. Among the contaminants are trichloroethylene and vinyl chloride which has been linked to causing angiosarcoma.

The proposed plan would cost $723,000 and take  twelve years; the alternative plan could be done in seven years but at a cost of $1,100,000.   As one local resident, Cheyenne Rheingold, put it,  "If this is about human health, why not do it in seven years instead of waiting longer?"

Officials say that the longer cleanup is minimal in its health risk because the ground water is not used for consumption and people are not exposed to the contamination.  Maxine Rheingold is afraid that officials don't really realize how dangerous this contamination is to human health.

"There is a health risk, and nobody knows what that risk is until years later," she said.

The military's proposed cleanup plan involves extracting some of the contaminated groundwater from the site while letting the rest of contamination break down over time. State and federal environmental regulators will study the military's plan and accept comments from the public through Aug. 28. A final plan will be adopted at some point after that review.

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Vinyl Chloride Not A Threat Says Raytheon

Posted on June 2, 2008 by David Austin

Raytheon Corporation environmental experts spoke to a large crowd of residents last week and  said that the plume of toxic chemicals that has spread from the plant is not a health risk.  Among those  at the meeting were state lawmakers, city council members and lawyers representing homeowners who have contaminated ground water under their homes.

It's been 17 years since the toxic plume was discovered when the Pinellas Trail recreation path was being built but most of the residents didn't find out until news reports surfaced in March.

There are about 700 irrigation wells within a mile radius of the plant plant.  Of about 200 that have been tested, 12 have been found to be contaminated.

Gregory Taylor, senior environmental scientist at Raytheon, told the crowd there is no threat to public health. There is a risk of "less than one in a million" of developing cancer from any exposure scenario, he said.

Taylor noted, however, that experts tapped for the environmental assessment could not agree with the state on a computer model to determine whether fruit and vegetables irrigated with the contaminated water pose a health risk.

However, an environmental science professor at the University of South Florida put the test results into a formula that state health officials use for determining health risks.   According to that formula the chance of developing cancer increased between one in a million and nine in a million if water from contaminated wells was used in growing fruit and vegetables.

Ratheon's Taylor responded by saying that any poisoning would be relative to the dose absorbed and the chemicals - TCE(trichloroethylene), vinyl chloride and 1,4-Dioxane - are also found in things like shampoo, spot remover and cigarette smoke.  He went on to say that too much of anything can be hazardous, even eating too many bananas or carrots.

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