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EPA to recheck Behr neighborhood contamination

The agency has ordered further testing of the Behr superfund site

Karen Reeder sits with her cat in the backyard of her home on Milburn Street in Dayton, the neighborhood of the Behr superfund site. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is calling for more residents to allow testing in their homes and businesses to assess contamination from the Behr Dayton Thermal Products plant.

Staff photo by Jim Witmer Karen Reeder sits with her cat in the backyard of her home on Milburn Street in Dayton, the neighborhood of the Behr superfund site. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is calling for more residents to allow testing in their homes and businesses to assess contamination from the Behr Dayton Thermal Products plant.

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By Steve Bennish, Staff Writer Updated 3:03 PM Sunday, September 20, 2009

DAYTON — Even though the last test of her house two years ago showed no problems, Karen Reeder still worries about a contaminated plume of groundwater that is moving underground.

“You don’t know where it’s going,” she said.

Reeder, 47, of 630 Milburn Ave., is glad that more testing is scheduled for the coming weeks in the neighborhood where she has lived for more than 20 years.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is calling for more residents to allow testing in their homes and businesses, in a renewed effort to assess contamination from the Behr Dayton Thermal Products plant.

An office that EPA operated at 919 N. Keowee St. has reopened to help coordinate the renewed work on the Superfund site, said on-scene coordinator Steve Renninger.

The developments follow protests from residents that the overall effort wasn’t thorough or aggressive enough and didn’t provide for continued sampling.

Civil lawsuits related to the contamination are pending.

In 2003, ground water beneath the Behr facility, 1600 Webster St., was found to be contaminated with trichloroethene, or TCE, a solvent linked to health problems. By 2006, a contaminated ground water plume was determined to be moving south-southwest into the nearby neighborhood.

Renninger said that 400 residential and commercial structures have been tested. Of those, 205 required a mitigation system to keep indoor air clean.

Two-hundred additional tests are needed, some of them retests of previously examined sites, Renninger said.

In August, the EPA issued an administrative order to Behr requiring the company to test for toxic vapors seeping into structures. EPA said it issued the order because Chrysler LLC, the plant’s former owner, filed for bankruptcy in the spring and was no longer performing the tasks. A Behr representative declined comment.

Under the order, Behr is required to:

• Operate a soil vapor extraction system along Daniel Street to supplement the work of systems in residences nearby.

• Sample and evaluate vapor systems already installed in occupied structures and fix those that don’t work.

• Conduct additional testing, re-test locations and install new systems.

• Sample air at the new Salvation Army facility, at 1000 Keowee St., when the buildings are ready for occupation.

In other developments, EPA has approved a work plan for a remedial investigation study, the first step of many toward cleaning up the contamination by removing it, said Stacey Coburn, manager of the remediation project.

Related plans that will guide the project should be completed by year’s end, she said.

Jerry Bowling represents the McCook Field neighborhood group BVOCAL, which produced a video about the situation and posted it online at YouTube.com.

He said he’s pleased with the commitments to annual air evacuation system inspections for two years, and indoor air sampling on a subset of homes in 2011. The cycle would repeat every three years. Those without systems would also get tests.

“It’s great. It’s not everything we asked for, but it’s more than what we were getting,” he said.

The video has garnered 1,000 views, according to YouTube.

Ellis Jacobs, an attorney representing the group, called the latest actions “a big step in the right direction.”