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Largo Chemical Plume Still Spreading

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By STEVE ANDREWS | News Channel 8

Published: March 25, 2009

LARGO - A large chemical plume that sits beneath the Young-Rainey Star Center building on Belcher Road has spread to nearby properties, including areas around a daycare center.

The federal Energy Department, which is overseeing a cleanup at the former General Electric plant, says the contamination poses no threat to children at the New Directions In Learning Child Development Center. The center sits on the former GE plant property.

The Energy Department has already spent about $15 million to clean up other areas of the plant property, digging holes 30 to 35 feet deep and removing 8,000 cubic yards of soil.

The department is overseeing the cleanup because the contamination began in the 1960s when GE produced triggers for nuclear weapons at the plant. Workers at the former GE plant dumped chemicals, degreasers, and cleaning solutions into a pit near the northeast section of the site.

"Back at that time, the way to get rid of them is to stick them in the ground and bury them," said Jack Craig, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Energy. "There was quite a problem; we've pulled out of this area probably 20,000 pounds of contaminants."

Craig says tests reveal high traces of vinyl chloride at the site. Prolonged direct contact with the chemical can cause cancer in humans.

The Energy Department says the most difficult contamination problem on the site is the mass that sits under the main 11-acre building at the Star Center.

"We cannot pull that material out of the ground because there's no way to get under the building," Craig said.

Energy Department charts mapping the contamination beneath the Star Center show chemicals are moving east toward the daycare center. The contamination also has spread south through some drainage ponds, across Bryan Dairy Road into an office park across the street.

"When [the Energy Department] first put up [test] wells around the school, there was no detection," said Lenise Hill, the child center's director. "They have now detected vinyl chloride; they are still saying there is no danger."

Craig says the plume is not a threat to the day care center.

"It's deep enough; it's at least 13 feet or deeper under the ground and there is no risk to health and safety of humans," Craig said.

Toxicologist Ira Richards, of the University of South Florida's College of Public Health, says these are well known toxins.

"They do produce specific injury and in the case of these things the injury is to the nervous system and to the liver," Richards said.

Richards agrees there is no threat to the day care.

"It would be doubtful that there would be any contamination to the extent that children would be exposed to any significant airborne or soil levels of this material," Richards said.

Hill says the digging is hurting her business.

"We had a lot of families that are a little too worried and we lost about 15 families that did not feel too comfortable with it," Hill said.

Since 1992, the Energy Department has tried draining, flushing, even steaming and heating away contamination at the former GE plant, but tests showed levels of the chemical trichloroethylene remained at unacceptably high levels in the groundwater. Trichloroethylene eventually breaks down into a cancer-causing chemical called vinyl chloride.

Contaminated soil will be hauled off to landfills licensed to handle the waste. Holes were filled with a concrete mixture, so that once the area is cleaned, the Star Center can put new buildings on the land.

Craig acknowledges the contamination is holding up Pinellas County road improvements and construction on Bryan Dairy Road.

"We had some detects on the other side when we put in some wells," Craig said. "And we think it may be starting to cross Belcher Road, but we're not sure."

Craig says within a year the Energy Department hopes to come up with an action plan to remove the contaminants that continue spreading farther and faster than anticipated.

Reporter Steve Andrews can be reached at (813) 5779.

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