By Gordon Dritschilo
RUTLAND HERALD
Testing found contaminated soil under the Vermont Farmers Food Center that could affect air quality in the main building, state officials said Tuesday.
Kimberly Caldwell, an environmental analyst for the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, said high levels of trichloroethylene, a carcinogen found in industrial degreasers, was found in two samples from under the main building at the property. She said the phase one environmental testing found 5,800 micrograms per cubic meter in one sample and 6,100 in another.
The level at which the contaminants pose a risk to air quality, Caldwell said, is 23. She said a variety of factors can affect the chemical’s ability to go from the ground to the air and that the state requested the owners immediately do air testing on the property.
“We don’t have indoor air data yet,” Caldwell said. “It’s a volatile contaminant.”
Caldwell said multiple factors will be evaluated in deciding what sort of cleanup or remediation efforts might be needed on the site.
Heidi Lynch, operations director for VFFC, said the air testing was underway this week.
“They’re trying to do it as soon as possible so we can get results as soon as possible and proceed from there,” Lynch said.
Lynch said they received the results Nov. 2, prior to the first Saturday of the winter farmers market.
“We shared what we know with all of our constituents, including the farmers market organization,” Lynch said.
Vermont Farmers Market President Paul Horton could not be immediately reached for comment late Tuesday afternoon.
The testing was a part of the preparations for a planned expansion of the VFFCs operations at the property, which would include a commercial kitchen, custom meat-cutting room and a workforce development kitchen.
“There’s always something at every site,” said Ed Bove, executive director of the Rutland Region Planning Commission. “No site ever comes back clean. The idea is to find out what’s there … and develop a remediation plan.”
Bove said he did not have enough information to judge the severity of the contamination, but that the commission stood ready to help VFFC through the brownfields process.
Bove said the testing had brought some good news. The Lynda Lee dress factory on Baxter Street also figures into the VFFC’s expansion plans, and Bove said phase two testing there was not finding any contamination beyond the asbestos that had already been identified.
“That’s just a matter of bringing it somewhere,” he said. “It’s not a matter of digging in the ground. It’s a matter of proper disposal.”
Lynch said the organization was caught off-guard by the news and that she had never heard any complaints about air quality in the building. She said they were still unclear on the risks posed by the contamination.
“We know part of the information,” she said. “We want to give everyone the information we have as we go through this process.”
Caldwell said the chemical poses a particular risk to pregnant women and women of childbearing age and is associated with congenital heart problems.
“The specific short-term risk is to that group, but it is a known carcinogen so it could apply to the general population,” she said.
The EPA’s fact sheet on trichloroethylene lists a number of health effects linked to short-term and long term exposure but also says the agency is “currently reassessing the cancer classification” of the chemical.
Caldwell said part of the process involves contacting former owners of and operators on the property to try to identify the source of contamination. She said records indicate General Electric operated a machine shop and foundry there in the 1960s and 1970s. A GE representative did not have information on the company’s history with the site immediately available late Tuesday afternoon.
Caldwell said she had no record of phase one testing at the site prior to September. The VFFC took over and renovated the site, which had long been vacant and most recently been a Mintzer Brothers compound, in 2012.
“It is important for people buying a property, a commercial industrial property where there’s a potential for issues, to do their due diligence before buying that property,” Caldwell said.
VFFC founder and board president Greg Cox was not immediately available for comment Tuesday afternoon.
gordon.dritschilo @rutlandherald.com
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