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State: Smoking May Be Chemical Culprit; Tenant: I Don't Smoke

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By MARK DOUGLAS

News Channel 8

Published: September 18, 2008

Oscar Silva lives at BrandyWine apartments in St. Petersburg just a few hundred feet from the Raytheon defense plant.

Tuesday, the Florida Department of Health sent a letter to Silva telling him the indoor air in his apartment has a cancer-causing level of a chemical called 1,2, Dichloroethane, also known as DCA, one of the chemicals showing up in the Raytheon groundwater plume that has been spreading under the neighborhoods since 1999.

The state letter tells Silva that elevated levels of DCA in his apartment "are most likely from cigarette smoke … since people do smoke in your apartment."

Silva says the trouble with that theory is that neither he nor his wife smokes. The couple's 3 week old son, Nicholas, can't hold a binky in his mouth, much less a cigarette.

"It's strange, because I have been here three months and nobody has smoked a single cigarette here," Silva said in Spanish.

He speaks little English and can't read a word of it. Until a reporter showed up at his apartment Wednesday, Silva didn't have a clue what the Department of Health was trying to tell him in the letter.

"No, I only received this letter yesterday. I was going to ask what it was about," Silva said.

Department of health spokeswoman Judi Spann says her agency is drafting a Spanish language version of the letter that Silva can understand.

Department of Health scientists settled on the smoking theory after concluding that residents of both apartments at BrandyWine with elevated levels of DCA are smokers.

The tenant of the other affected apartment, Tim Gallant, does smoke but doesn't think that's the reason for cancer-causing levels of DCA in the air of his home.

Neither does Eckerd College environmental studies professor Kip Curtis, who thought the state's smoking theory was flawed even before finding out Silva doesn't smoke. Curtis says established research on smoking can't account for the high levels of DCA found in the two BrandyWine apartments.

Curtis lays blame squarely on the DCA-tainted Raytheon plume that has been detected under BrandyWine. "It would seem extremely unlikely that it's coming from any other source," Curtis said.

Reports on file with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection show six test wells have detected DCA in groundwater within 200 feet of the same two BrandyWine apartments that now have elevated levels in their indoor air.

No one at DEP is willing to comment on whether there is a link between the groundwater plume and indoor air samples at BrandyWine. The Department of Health says it primarily is responsible for protecting residents, not tracing the source of pollutants.

Whatever the case, Cindy Duffy, spokeswoman for AIMCO, the company that owns BrandyWine, says there is a need for more action by the state.

After learning from a reporter that Silva doesn't smoke, AIMCO sent a letter to the Department of Health demanding more testing of apartments, Duffy said. "We think this particular situation warrants some additional information and analysis from the Department of Health," Duffy said.

Silva isn't sure what to do to protect his family from the unseen danger of DCA contamination, but he's pretty sure the state's solution to his pollution isn't going to work. "Well, I don't need to buy a filter if I don't smoke," Silva said.

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