In the 1990s, the Perkiomen Valley School District put water bottle fountains in all schools. The school district determined the TCE level in water was unsafe for children.
Betsy worked with Cathy Masic at the 4H Grange building in a former school building along Rt 113 between Collegeville/Trappe and Skippack Village. Cathy and Dave Masic lived across the street from the 4H Grange.
Betsy & me have friends who live in Collegeville and say they’ve never heard of anyone getting cancer from TCE.
Cathy & Dave Masic's grandson developed brain tumors from TCE.
Dave & Cathy Masic didn’t want to go public so we did not talk about it.
The EPA found excessive amounts of TCE in their well water capping their well. The EPA brought water containers for the Masic's drinking & bathing.
At the same time their 2 year old grandson who lived with Cathy & Dave developed cancerous brain tumors.
Cathy lived for years at the Ronald McDonald House next to Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia while their grandson endured multiple surgeries. Their grandson survived. He grew into a basically normal young man. I believe Cathy's devoted care for him is a big reason he survived.
Philadelphia Suburban Water Company extended a water line along Rt. 113 for the properties in the Skippack Twp area.
The TCE contamination in Northwest Montgomery County continues to this day. I can’t in good conscience stay quiet about this.
CANCER FROM TCE REMAINS A RISK IN THE AREAS SURROUNDING THE TUBE COMPANIES IN NORTHWEST MONTGOMERY COUNTY PA
"The discovery of high levels of airborne trichloroethylene, a potentially cancer-causing chemical, has prompted widespread fears, evidenced by the estimated 600 people who attended a public meeting on the air pollution question Tuesday at Perkiomen Valley Middle School East’s auditorium in Perkiomen Township.
The revelation — state environmental officials say they could have a “significant bearing” on excess lifetime cancer risks in the Collegeville area — could spawn similar air testing across the state in areas with groundwater tainted with trichloroethylene, or TCE, a degreasing chemical found in many of the country’s worst environmental cleanup sites.
“I’ve lived here 10 years and we’re just hearing about this,” Leo Catalfano, 60, of Lower Providence Township, said.
Catalfano and his neighbors aren’t alone. Homeowners across the country are just beginning to get an education about the chemical that at one time was considered a threat only to drinking water when it leaked or was dumped into the ground.
But in recent years, a growing number of homeowners nationwide have had ventilation systems added in their homes to protect against TCE fumes that may have been emanating from their basement floors for decades.
TCE is a solvent used heavily by industry to remove grease from metal parts. It also used in paints, adhesives and spot removers. Drinking or breathing high levels may cause damage to the nervous system and liver and lungs and can even cause death in extreme cases, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
Among those who have had vent systems installed in their homes are residents in Perkasie, Bucks County; Bally and Hereford Township in Berks County; and Hazle Township and West Hazleton in Luzerne County.
Last year, a high-ranking administrator with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wrote in the New York Environmental Lawyer publication that there is a potential for widespread TCE vapor problems in buildings across the country…
The DEP says two companies that spew a combined 120 tons to 140 tons of TCE into the air annually have agreed to cut down on their emissions. The DEP says the two tube manufacturing plants — Superior Tube Co. in Lower Providence and Accellent in Trappe, a borough that borders Collegeville — already are meeting air emission requirements, but are willing to take further steps to help improve air quality.
The DEP stumbled onto the air problem in those areas in 2004 after finding airborne TCE during routine testing in Pottstown, Montgomery County, where the state has one of its 10 testing sites.
“We were finding TCE levels and weren’t sure where it was coming from,” Rebarchak said. “There were no known TCE-emitting facilities in the Pottstown area. All we knew was that there was groundwater contamination in Upper Pottsgrove. We did monitoring there and weren’t detecting anything.
“We looked for the next nearest groundwater contamination [in Collegeville].”
There has been TCE groundwater contamination near Superior Tube since the late 1970s.
Rebarchak said DEP investigators determined the source of the TCE was not the groundwater, but emissions from the industrial plants.
She said the DEP has not tested indoor air in homes because “vapor intrusion is more linked to groundwater contamination and the [TCE] levels in the Collegeville area wouldn’t merit [indoor air] testing.”
Homeowners in that area aren’t happy about that.
Jeffrey Obrecht, a 48-year-old father living in Trappe, asked DEP officials to consider home testing. He’s a geologist who knows TCE breaks down into other harmful substances, including vinyl chloride, a gas also considered a potential carcinogen.
“What’s in the homes, what’s in the schools, what’s in the businesses?” Obrecht asked DEP officials at Tuesday’s meeting.
One woman said her four children have asthma despite the fact that her family has no history of respiratory problems. She questioned whether TCE fumes are to blame.
Realtors at Tuesday’s meeting suggested that the air problems could hurt the resale value of homes.
Homeowners might find it cost-prohibitive to test for TCE in their homes. DEP officials say it would cost from $300 to $1,000 for one test. To replicate what the DEP does — a 24-hour air test every six days for an entire year — would cost about $60,000.
Some residents voiced their displeasure that the DEP is focusing its attention on the TCE coming from industries rather than homes. They said air quality should have been tested decades ago when groundwater problems were first discovered.
The residents have asked the Montgomery County Health Department to study the number of cancer cases in the area to determine if it’s higher than in other areas of similar size.
“I say the hell with the industries,” Catalfano said. “Look at the people sitting here.”
patrick.lester@mcall.com
215-529-2612"
MORE AT:
October 5, 2021 at 2:38 p.m.
ALSO SEE:
POTTSTOWN MERCURY
Air-strippers could get TCE filters
- Evan Brandt PUBLISHED: March 4, 2007 at 6:10 a.m. | UPDATED: September 24, 2021 at 3:01 a.m. Local News, News
POTTSTOWN MERCURY
Report details amount of TCE from air strippers
Evan Brandt September 24, 2021 at 2:52 a.m.
THE GUARDIAN
Revealed: the US is averaging one chemical accident every two days
Guardian analysis of data in light of Ohio train derailment shows accidental releases are happening consistently
Sat 25 Feb 2023 06.00 EST
MY EARIER POSTS ON TCE CONTAMINATION
Monday, July 9, 2018
Reading about the kids trapped in a cave reminded me that we lived over mine shafts.
I’m re-looking up stuff about the Copper mines under our house in Lower Frederick. They go back to about 1720 & William Penn:
“the Perkiomen Copper Mining Company was chartered by an act of Assembly. The Revolutionary War seems to have interrupted mining operations, as evidence points to the fact that the vein was hidden and work stopped to prevent the British from procuring the ore.”
“An attempt to re-open the mine prior to World War I proved unprofitable because of the low-grade ore that was found,”
FROM:
SCHWENKSVILLE BOROUGH A HISTORY OF SCHWENKSVILLE
Lower Frederick Township was interested in the exact location of the Perkiomen Copper Mining Company mine shafts. My home was over copper mine tunnels. A new development was in the planning stages over even more copper mine tunnels.
I can’t remember his name but someone (whose name might come to me) from the Lower Frederick Planning Commission was with me when we talked to a spelunker who was exploring the mine shafts for Lower Frederick Township.
He was big guy wearing a beat up white construction hat with a light riveted to it. It had straps to cover his ears. The scrapes on the hat came from moving through narrow caves. Spelunking is not really for someone 6.5 or so & 200 lbs. but we don’t get to choose our bodies, not yet anyway, see “Westworld” HBO.
They tried to reopen the mines during WWI. The ore quality was too low to use. There is or maybe by now was a wood frame house where copper mine workers from that WWI period lived that was accessible from a property on Game Farm Road.
There is an iron grate covering a copper mine shaft just off (I think) Gerloff Road. People, probably mostly children, try to explore the mines from time to time. I am not aware of anyone being trapped in the mines.
There is a ghost story:
“Over the years, many strange tales of the mine were circulated, one of which involves two adventurers who were determined to find the hidden ore. They entered the shaft with candles and began working at removing some heavy stones that blocked their way. After the removal of several stones, an icy blast hit them and blew out the candles. They hastily withdrew, claiming that a "spirit" of the mine guarded the treasure.”
FROM:
SCHWENKSVILLE BOROUGH A HISTORY OF SCHWENKSVILLE
Old Perkiomen Copper Mine Bounded Roughly by Swamp Creek, Mine Run. Perkiomen Creek
The Eva R. Meng Wildlife Preserve and Bird Sanctuary is on Rock Hill.
I used to walk to the top of Rock Hill in the Meng Preserve from my home in Lower Frederick Township.
Jurassic or Triassic Rock of molten magma from the same volcanic rock Brunswick Formation at Devil’s Den in Gettysburg National Park is at the top of Rock Hill in Limerick Township, PA. The rocks, which go more than a mile under the earth, look something like Superman’s crystal cave.
Some of my neighbors ran completely out of water
The rock crystals you see on Rock Hill are not boulders. You see the tip of what is more than a mile deep wall of impervious rock splitting Lower Frederick’s well water in half.
It was discovered that a gas station (there could have been other sources) was spilling Trichloroethylene (TCE) into the ground rendering the largest water source in Lower Frederick Township unusable.
TCE contamination is the reason we ran out of water for a time until Philadelphia Suburban Water Company connected us to the Green Lane Reservoir. The pump station for the water from Green Lane Reservoir is at the confluence of the Perkiomen Creek at the Schuylkill River.
It seems that problems with well water contamination continue to this day:
Slow crawl of Bucks, Montgomery County water contamination lawsuits continues
Posted by James Pitcherella at 12:32 PM No comments:
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Endangered Species Act Changes Give Agencies More Say
I once worked as a Riverkeeper volunteer on watershed issues. I had a chance to speak with a water quality specialist (scientist) who was then an EPA (Federal) employee. His range of operation included the entire state of Pennsylvania. He said that it was impossible for him to check water quality without the help of citizen volunteers alerting him to areas of interest. That was more than 10 years ago. The Bush Administration has since taken the skin and muscle from the EPA staff so that the Republican’s favorite “robber barons” can run over environmental regulations.
(Several international Mafias and Mafiyas have infiltrated our deregulated financial institutions, but that is another chapter in the Conservative Republican Robberbaron Takeover of the USA.)
Some of our worst pollution has stemmed from illegal dumping of hazardous materials; many times by syndicated organized crime; the very same people that bring you heroin and cocaine. I have seen the effect of TCE water pollution on a small boy. He developed a brain tumor when he was two years old and spent the next 5 years in Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. In my view polluting our air and water is as much a criminal and anti-social act as those that destroy lives by pushing drugs.
From Aldo Leopold:
“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant, "What good is it?" If the land mechanism as a whole is good, then every part is good, whether we understand it or not. If the biota, in the course of eons, has built something we like but do not understand, then who but a fool would discard seemingly useless parts? To keep every cog and wheel is the first precaution of intelligent tinkering.”
This new Bu$h proposal is really a blank check for polluters to rape God’s Creation and steal from our progeny.
Jim Pitcherella
Endangered Species Act Changes Give Agencies More Say
By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 12, 2008; A01
The Bush administration yesterday proposed a regulatory overhaul of the Endangered Species Act to allow federal agencies to decide whether protected species would be imperiled by agency projects, eliminating the independent scientific reviews that have been required for more than three decades.
The new rules, which will be subject to a 30-day per comment period, would use administrative powers to make broad changes in the law that Congress has resisted for years. Under current law, agencies must subject any plans that potentially affect endangered animals and plants to an independent review by the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service. Under the proposed new rules, dam and highway construction and other federal projects could proceed without delay if the agency in charge decides they would not harm vulnerable species.
In a telephone call with reporters yesterday, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne described the new rules as a "narrow regulatory change" that "will provide clarity and certainty to the consultation process under the Endangered Species Act."
But environmentalists and congressional Democrats blasted the proposal as a last-minute attempt by the administration to bring about dramatic changes in the law. For more than a decade, congressional Republicans have been trying unsuccessfully to rewrite the act, which property owners and developers say imposes unreasonable economic costs.
"I am deeply troubled by this proposed rule, which gives federal agencies an unacceptable degree of discretion to decide whether or not to comply with the Endangered Species Act," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, who asked for a staff briefing before the proposal was announced but did not receive one. "Eleventh-hour rulemakings rarely, if ever, lead to good government -- this is not the type of legacy this Interior Department should be leaving for future generations."
Bob Irvin, senior vice president of conservation programs at the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife, questioned how some federal agencies could make the assessments, since most do not have wildlife biologists on staff.
"Clearly, that's a case of asking the fox to guard the chicken coop," Irvin said, adding that the original law created "a giant caution light that made federal agencies stop and think about the impacts of their actions." He said, "What the Bush administration is telling those agencies is they don't have to think about those impacts anymore."
Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081102299.html
Posted by James Pitcherella at 12:46 PM
