Month: May 2016

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established health advisories for two chemical contaminants called PFOA and PFOS based on the agency’s assessment of the latest peer-reviewed science. These advisories will provide the most up-to-date information on the health risks of these chemicals and aid drinking water system operators and state, tribal and local officials in making determinations as to the appropriate steps needed to address PFOA and PFOS in their communities. EPA’s assessment indicates that drinking water with individual or combined concentrations of PFOA and PFOS below 70 parts per trillion (0.07 micrograms per liter ug/L) is not expected to result in adverse health effects over a lifetime of exposure.

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) are manmade chemicals that are part of a larger family of chemicals called perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). PFOA and PFOS have been used in a number of consumer products, including; carpets, clothing, fabrics for furniture, leather, paper packaging for food, and as coating additives for waterproofing or stain and grease-resistant agents used in cookware and other materials. They are also used for firefighting at air-fields and in a number of industrial processes.

Exposure to high levels of PFOA and PFOS may result in developmental effects to fetuses during pregnancy or to breastfed infants, cancer, liver effects, immune effects, and thyroid effects.

For most people, their source of exposure to PFOA and PFOS has come through food and consumer products. But drinking water can be an additional source of exposure in the small percentage of communities where these chemicals have contaminated water supplies.  This is typically a localized issue associated with a specific facility, such as a manufacturing plant or airfield that made or used these chemicals.

Even though releases of these chemicals to surface water and groundwater is expected to decline given the limited ongoing uses of PFOA and PFOS-related chemicals, risk of exposure is still possible due to their legacy uses, existing and legacy uses on imported goods, and degradation of precursors. Additionally, PFOA and PFOS are very persistent in the environment and in the human body. They have been detected in water, wildlife, and humans worldwide. EnviroForensics employs technical experts in the field of environmental risk assessment and can aid in investigating, remediating, and conducting human health risk assessments to limit exposure to these chemical contaminants, as well as other environmental contaminants.

The Drinking Water Health Advisories for PFOA and PFOS, and supporting documents can be found at the following link:

https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/drinking-water-health-advisories-pfoa-and-pfos

The water crisis in Flint, Michigan has sparked concerns over the cleanliness drinking water in Indianapolis and in every city and town across America. It seems like everyday we are learning about new sites where environmental contamination has been found presenting health risks to residences in rural and urban neighborhoods.  Here at EnviroForensics we applaud the media for highlighting this problem and want to clear up one major misconception regarding how fast or slow environmental investigations and remediations take place.  While many, many sites take an unnecessarily long time to get through the investigation and remediation process, we pride ourselves in pushing projects to site closure.  In fact, we have closed more solvent contaminated sites than any company in the Midwest,  because we know that it is in our clients’ best interest as well as the communities’ best interest.

Recently, Channel 13 in Indianapolis, reported on a series of potentially dangerous contamination Sites across the state that have gone unchecked for years. These chemicals can get into the drinking water or seep into homes in the form of vapor, creating a risk to residents.

While it is the Indiana Department of Environmental Management’s responsibility to ensure that the public is being protected from the contamination at these sites, some businesses find loopholes in the system that allow the cleanup process to drag on and on for years.

In the report by Channel 13, they found hundreds of businesses that have been protected from lawsuits by being in IDEM’s Voluntary Remediation Program while performing little to no cleanup for years and in some instances decades.

Our goal at EnviroForensics is to make sure a chemical contamination never becomes a serious risk to public health. We pride ourselves in working with our clients to cleanup environmental contamination in a timely manner so that the environment is cleaner and their property values can be restored.  At EnviroForensics we live by our moniker that we Turn Environmental Liabilities Into Assets and this can only be achieved by remediating contaminated sites.

Citizens, business owners and community leaders of the Riverside neighborhood met with the US EPA, Citizens Energy Group and environmental professionals on May 24, 2016 at the Riverside Community Center to discuss the possibility of adding a group of city drinking water wells to the National Priority List (NPL) as a Superfund site.

While the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) was noticeably absent from the meeting, citizens expressed their concern that designating this area a Superfund site would tarnish the neighborhoods reputation, hindering economic development and diminishing the hard work that their community has conducted in turning the area around.

Last April, the EPA announced a proposal to add the Riverside Groundwater Contamination site in Indianapolis to the NPL.  The NPL is EPA’s list of Superfund sites.  Superfund is a federal program that investigates and cleans up the most complex or uncontrolled or abandoned hazardous waste sites in the country.

The problem stems from groundwater samples collected from the city’s municipal drinking water wells that showed elevated levels of vinyl chloride and 1,2-dichloroethylene, chemicals found as a breakdown products of solvents commonly used by dry cleaners, small businesses, and manufacturers.  Representatives from Citizens Energy, manager of the city water supply, repeatedly stated that the drinking water was safe to drink and that water from the contaminated wells was mixed with other city water and treated before being supplied to their customers.

While many current and former businesses in the area have been identified as causing groundwater contamination, many more locations will likely come under scrutiny as being potentially responsible for the groundwater contamination of the city’s wells.  But, because the drinking water wells draw groundwater from two distinct water-bearing units nearly 100 feet below the land surface, it is very costly to collect soil and groundwater samples necessary to accurately identify the contaminant sources. In the past IDEM officials have expressed their lack of manpower and financial resources to take on this investigation and presumably asked EPA to assist them in those efforts.

The meeting was intended for EPA to educate the public on the process it uses to evaluate, score and rank sites when determining whether or not to actually list and designate a site as Superfund-eligible.   Frustration and surprise were commonly expressed by the general public and community leaders as they learned for the first time that EPA’s 60-day comment period started on April 6, leaving less than two weeks for them to provide their concerns in writing to the federal Agency.  Peggy Gamlin, who organized the meeting said, “For years this area has been redlined (a term used when banks, insurance companies and even supermarkets deny services directly or by raising prices) and now we are up against a Superfund designation that will only damage our efforts.” “At a minimum” she said, “could we at least extend the comment period?”

State Senator Greg Taylor was present and expressed frustration with the EPA for their lack of engaging the community in the process stating, “You’ve been studying this problem for years and no one has ever contacted my office to discuss this serious issue.  To my knowledge this is the first public meeting that has been held to discuss the merits of this Superfund designation and we are told comments are required in a little more than a week.”

Stephen Henshaw, president of EnviroForensics also spoke at the meeting. Henshaw agrees that listing this area as a Superfund site could give it a stigma that could adversely effect the growth plans for the area, but thinks EPA could assist the community by issuing information demands to the businesses that IDEM has identified as potentially causing or contributing to the groundwater contamination.  For several years, IDEM has been compiling a list of former dry cleaners and launderers and has found over 167 former and current dry cleaners within the wellhead protection area of Riverside and White River municipal wells.

Henshaw argues that while the groundwater levels observed in the Riverside municipal well field are below the allowed drinking water levels, such levels pose a risk and attention needs to be given to identify and mitigate sources of contamination that are found to be contaminating or threatening the city’s drinking water supply.  While acknowledging that cleaning up contamination from old manufacturing sites, dry cleaners, and other businesses is extremely costly, he stated, “While it’s true that groundwater contamination may have been caused by accidental spills and releases of dry cleaning solvents, as well as solvents used to clean machine parts in past decades, businesses — even those now defunct — can use their old insurance policies, policies written 40 and 50 years ago, to fund the costs of investigation and remediation.” Henshaw also contends that more focus needs to be given to those sites already in IDEM’s cleanup programs citing an unnecessarily long and drawn out process between consultants and IDEM in getting sites remediated.  He said that EnviroForensics routinely finds old insurance policies to assist past and current business owners address their environmental liabilities stating, “Insurance policies don’t expire and can still be used to protect the policyholder facing regulatory enforcement even if the company that caused the contamination is out of business.”

For more information on the Riverside Groundwater Contamination site, contact Nuria Muñiz, NPL Coordinator, 312-886-4439, muniz.nuria@epa.gov.  The EPA during the 60-day comment period currently expires on June 6.