TCE Is Not A Threat To Water Supply
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DAVE’S WORLD
By David Howell
The media frenzy that followed the filing of the federal lawsuit by former Holley Carburetor employees has almost subsided. The first lawsuit was filed and others will follow as the number of plaintiffs has grown to over 900 and counting. The plaintiffs are former employees who were exposed to a solvent, trichloroethylene or TCE, that was used in the plant for over a decade beginning around 1972. Exposure to TCE is known to cause cancer, and I have not talked to a single person who thinks these workers do not deserve their day in court.
There are lingering concerns about potential issues related to the contamination. Some people in the Water Valley area and even in other areas of the county are concerned about TCE in their drinking water. I learned this after talking to an employee at one water association last week who told me about phone calls, emails and conversations with customers about the water. Some of the callers were even frantic, and the dialogue was often intense and emotional.
The Mississippi Department of Health (MDH) regulates drinking water and testing is required to check for volatile organic chemicals like TCE in the water. This testing is done on regular intervals, and there is a record of all public water supply testing. There has been no record of TCE in the drinking water that is pumped from deep aquifers.
The confusion may stem from groundwater contamination in an isolated area north of the former Holley Carburetor plant. The contaminated area, referred to as a plume, spans approximately 340 acres north and northwest of the plant where the toxic TCE was spilled. The chemical emanated from the original spill site at the plant and TCE levels are elevated in the soil and ground water in the plume, according to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ).
Work is underway to remediate the TCE contamination in this isolated area. MDEQ entered into an Agreed Order in 2016 with EnPro, a subsidiary company of the former Holley Carburetor plant, to remediate the TCE contamination. EnPro has implemented several remediation technologies to address contamination in the subsurface.
This work includes in-situ injections, a process that involves the injection or direct mixing of reactive chemical oxidants into groundwater and soil for the primary purpose of rapid and complete contaminant destruction.
EnPro has installed groundwater recovery wells that pump and treat groundwater.
EnPro has also installed a sub-slab depressurization system that prevents the TCE from coming through the slab at the plant site in the form of a vapor in a process caused vapor intrusion. Apparently breathing TCE for prolonged periods is a pathway for exposure to the toxic chemical. There has been a lot of work at the plant to ensure the air quality is safe for workers.
EnPro is also working on obtaining environmental covenants with all of the property owners in the plume. These covenants restrict land use and prohibit the installation of water wells in the vicinity of the plume without MDEQ approval. This restriction prevents residents or business properties from unknowingly being exposed to groundwater contamination.
Environmental covenants have been recorded in Yalobusha County land records for 31 properties located in the plume and work continues on obtaining covenants for a few remaining properties primarily located on Champion Circle and Frostland Drive.
This remediation effort is making a difference and the plume is gradually declining. MDEQ will continue to require cleanup and monitoring of contamination by Enpro until all remedial goals are met and multiple sampling events indicate results are sustained below remedial goals.
For TCE the remedial goal is five parts per billion in water (same the federal drinking water standard).
All of this information is complicated, and I appreciate Mayor Tommy Reynolds sharing some of the email exchanges with MDEQ officials during the last few weeks. But the bottom line, MDEQ officials report there are no health risks to Water Valley residents related to the TCE contamination. And MDEQ have reports no concerns for living, shopping, eating or doing business in connection with the EnPro site.
