TBO.com - Tampa Bay Online
Plume Has Residents Pondering Its Impact
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Published: March 29, 2008
Updated: 03/29/2008 12:22 am
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ST. PETERSBURG - Residents sought more answers Friday about what risk they face and why they didn't know until now of a potential danger after a News Channel 8 report revealed a plume of industrial pollution infiltrating the groundwater under a neighborhood's homes and playgrounds.
The report this week showed that the toxic field has spread at least a half mile from the Raytheon defense plant at 1501 72nd St., showing up in tests in the Azalea neighborhood of St. Petersburg.
Raytheon inherited the pollution problem from the plant's former owner, E-Systems, almost two decades ago. The only government agency directly overseeing the contamination is the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which first ordered a pollution assessment and cleanup 13 years ago.
Barbara Heck, president of the city's Council of Neighborhood Organizations, said the group "definitely will be working very closely with the city, the county, the state and federal agencies as they delve into exactly what the danger is to our citizens."
Heck wants to know more about how the DEP has managed the problem. "We're going to get to the bottom of this," she said.
According to its files, the DEP knew the chemicals were starting to contaminate the groundwater beneath nearby properties three years ago. There is no documentation available, however, showing the DEP or Raytheon notified homeowners during that time.
"I want to make it perfectly clear that there has never been, nor is there now, a pathway to exposure for residents," said Pamela Vazquez, a spokeswoman for the DEP.
The residents in Azalea are on city water, and the department established years ago that no one was drinking the contamination.
There are, however, about 700 irrigation wells within a mile radius of the plant, records from the Southwest Florida Water Management District show.
They pose a risk, said University of South Florida professor Jeffrey Cunningham, who earned a doctorate in civil engineering and environmental science from Stanford University.
"People who have their own irrigation well who are pulling up water to water their lawns - that's when there becomes a health risk because there's a route by which people might become exposed by those hazardous chemicals in the groundwater," he said.
News Channel 8 gathered samples from three private irrigation wells in the Azalea neighborhood and paid Environmental Conservation Laboratories of Orlando to test them for dioxane, one of the hazardous contaminants showing up in test wells as far as half a mile from the Raytheon plant.
The lab analysis did not reveal detectable amounts of dioxane in those samples.
Cunningham said he remains concerned because so many of Raytheon's test wells in the neighborhood are showing unhealthy levels of the pollution.
"Based on the numbers I'm looking at in these test results, if I had an irrigation well that was drawing the same water as being measured here, I'd be pretty concerned," he said earlier.
Joe Dindino said he has lived on 10th Avenue North for 30 years, and had no idea that chemicals such as dioxane, TCE and vinyl chloride were contaminating the ground in his neighborhood until a news reporter told him.
He wants to know why Raytheon didn't tell residents when its tests showed the plume was moving off the plant's property and under homes.
"They always say they're such good neighbors. They should have told us what was going on and what to be leery of," Dindino said.
In a statement Friday, Raytheon public relations manager George Rhynedance said the company "takes very seriously our responsibility to protect the health and safety of our employees, our neighbors and the environment. As we have in the past, we will continue our communication activities with our employees and our neighbors."
Dominic Griesi, president of the Azalea Homes Community Association, said he lives near the defense plant, having grown up in the same home since the 1950s. He said he did not know about the groundwater contamination in his neighborhood until a reporter told him.
"We're calling an emergency board meeting," he said.
Griesi said he wants to review as much information as he can detailing the extent of the contamination, the timing of when Raytheon, the state and the city knew about it and its possible impact on nearby properties.
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Reader Comments
Posted by ( nonewsisgoodnews ) on April 1, 2008 at 7:42 p.m. ( Suggest removal )
Today a meeting of the neighborhood association took place. Many of my neighbors and I went to see what would be said, and what we were going to do about this confusing and potentially tragic situation.
Instead a debate ensued on the Tropicana field. I could give a rats rear end about baseball.
This article is misleading, no "emergency" anything has been organized by the members of this community.
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