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Apartment Near Raytheon Site Hosts Meeting

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By MARK  DOUGLAS | News Channel 8

Published: November 25, 2008

ST. PETERSBURG - Some residents of the BrandyWine apartment complex in St. Petersburg say they are dissatisfied with the Florida Department of Health's assurances that their apartments are not at risk from toxic fumes generated by underground contamination at the nearby Raytheon defense plant.

Those concerns came to light during a community meeting Tuesday evening hosted by Brandywine's management in which residents received a briefing from DOH scientist Susan Skye, who supervised two rounds of indoor air quality testing involving four BrandyWine apartments in August and October. The plant is located at 1501 72nd St. N. in St. Petersburg.

Two of the apartments had elevated levels of the cancer-causing chemical known as 1,2-Dichloroethane, or DCA. Skye said the airborne DCA contamination is most likely from household chemicals and furnishings and not the Raytheon groundwater plume under the apartment complex which contains the same chemical.

After the meeting, apartment dweller Scott Horne said that "they only tested a few apartments. I think everybody would feel more comfortable and a more positive solution if more testing was done, more attention to the problem because no one likes to live next to a toxic dump."

Skye said more testing is unnecessary because none of the "main" contaminants in the Raytheon plume showed up in either round of DOH testing and the well testing shows the chemicals are too deep underground to vaporize into apartments.

Skye admitted to erring after the first round of testing when she blamed elevated readings of DCA in one resident's apartment on his smoking habit.

After a News Channel 8 investigation determined the resident doesn't smoke, Skye changed her conclusion about the source of DCA to "common household chemicals."

The DOH says the amount of DCA found in two BrandyWine apartments poses a "moderate increased risk" of cancer to those residents, equal to about one in 1,000 people getting cancer if exposed over a lifetime.

Regardless of where it's coming from, Skye advises any resident who's concerned about DCA or other chemical contamination to simply open their windows to clear the air.

Resident Scott Horne isn't satisfied with that solution, and questions why the DOH didn't find out about the contamination until 18 years after another state agency -- the Department of Environmental Protection — first began investigating toxic spills and dumping at the Raytheon site at a time when the property belonged to a previous company.

"Someone dropped the ball," Horne said.

Reporter Mark Douglas can be reached at (727) 536-9603.

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