How did chemicals get in water near two Evansville schools?

EVANSVILLE — High levels of hazardous dry cleaning solvents are contaminating groundwater near two schools, prompting cleanups.

An environmental consultant working on the cleanups says neither school is at risk.

Amy Hood, a resident of a home next door to one of the contaminated sites, says she has struggled with neurological health effects similar to those that might be caused by the chemicals, as well as cancer, and she wonders if there is a connection.

The contaminated sites at 1404 Washington Ave. and 4600 Bellemeade Ave. are located directly across from Bosse High School and Hebron Elementary.

Both sites are former locations of Clayton's Fine Drycleaning, a defunct laundry business whose former owner, Newburgh resident Andrew Clayton, still owns the properties.

The contamination was first reported to state officials in late 2008 after it was discovered while testing the site in preparation for sale, according to Clayton.

"In our industry (dry cleaning) this is a known issue," Clayton says.

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Chemicals at the sites, according to Indiana Department of Environmental Management documents, include the highly toxic TCE (trichloroethylene) and PCE (tetrachloroethylene) — both of which have been linked to cancer, kidney and liver damage and other health effects.

Clayton declined to say how the contamination happened.

"Typically, the older the facility, the more likely it is to have had leaks and spills," he said.

According to a history of the Washington Avenue site in IDEM records, Clayton's purchased the business there from another dry cleaner in 1956 and continued operations at the site until 1982.

Troy Risk's 2009 description of the Washington Avenue site for IDEM says TCE in groundwater there was up to 200 times the safe level and PCE was 80 times the safe level. Contaminated groundwater extends about 150 feet from the property.

"There is nothing to indicate the schools are at risk at this time," says Don Neeley, technical director for Troy Risk, Inc.

However, several commercial buildings near the Washington Avenue site, in addition to Hood's house, are potentially at risk, IDEM says.

At issue is exposure to chemical vapors accumulating at potentially harmful levels inside buildings above the contaminated groundwater, according to IDEM records.

Hood's home at 928 Lodge Ave. is one of those buildings. The brick, Tudor-style house now has a vapor mitigation system installed in it as part of the cleanup at the Washington Avenue site. Harmful vapors from the contaminated groundwater are collected in her basement and crawlspace and exhausted at a safe level through a roof vent.

This summer, Hood says, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She is currently recovering from a double mastectomy and still undergoing cancer treatments.

"There is no genetic history of it in my family," Hood says.

A biology teacher, Hood says she is enough of a scientist to understand she can't directly link her exposure to the chemicals to her cancer.

"I can't say but it makes me wonder," she says.

The cancer isn't the only health problem Hood says she experienced since moving back into the house, which she grew up in and purchased from her parents in 2006.

"I was a runner at the time and I was eating super healthy. I started having some major health issues in 2009. I started feeling rundown, fatigue — neurological kinds of symptoms," Hood says.

Although her doctor couldn't find a cause he continued asking her to think about any environmental factors that might be contributing to her illness.

Then she found out about the contamination next door.

"Almost all the vegetables we were eating we were growing in a garden in our yard," Hood says.

She immediately stopped and her health gradually began returning — until her cancer diagnosis.

Indianapolis-based environmental engineering company Troy Risk, Inc., is working with Clayton to contract and carryout the cleanup through IDEM's Voluntary Remediation Program.

Although Clayton sold his family business to Don's Cleaners in 2004, ownership of the actual properties stayed with Clayton.

Clayton's had been in business since 1947. Don's continued operating the laundries under the already established Clayton's name, including a coin-operated laundry and dry cleaining pick-up service at the Bellemeade location. Actual dry cleaning operations for all of the Don's Cleaners locations were consolidated to a single site in Garvin Industrial Park and uses safer, "green" methods.

Neeley says a cleanup plan has been approved by IDEM. It calls for removal of contaminated soils and treating groundwater by injecting a slurry that includes microbes — microscopic biological organisms that feed on the chemicals, breaking them down into safer components.

"Right now we are in the process of performing a pilot test," he says.

After IDEM reviews the pilot test results, cleanup could begin in earnest next summer, Neeley says.

Most of the contaminated groundwater at the site is moving southwest across Washington Avenue, Neeley says.

However, he says it is "diving" deeper as moves so that it is well below the existing water table. Neeley says this means there is a layer of clean groundwater above the contamination acting as protective barrier.

Contamination at the Bellemeade Avenue site remains closer to its source and does not extend under any other buildings, Neeley says.

IDEM is still reviewing the work plan for cleaning it up, he says.

Both of the builidings, at Washington and at Bellemeade, have vapor mitigation systems installed preventing harmful buildups of the chemical gases, Neeley says. The systems operate similar to the one in Hood's house.

Here is a story about another contaminated site in Evansville.