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Toxins Inch Toward A Pinellas Day Care

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By STEVE ANDREWS

sandrews@wfla.com

Published: March 26, 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 day care center.

The U.S. Department of Energy, 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 Department of Energy has 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. The site now belongs to Raytheon Co.

"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 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 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.

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

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

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

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

Richards agreed, though, that there is no threat to the day care center.

"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.

News Channel 8 reporter Steve Andrews can be reached at (813) 5779.

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