First reported 2/24/2010 1:41 p.m.
As the village of River Forest begins to solicit bids for redevelopment of a corner at Lake Street and Lathrop Avenue, the U.S. EPA is reporting that measured chemical contamination from a dry cleaner there has increased by more than 3,200 percent in the past eight years.
The report, which is posted on a new informational Web page for the U.S. EPA, also suggests the contamination may have migrated north across Lake Street onto St. Luke's Parish School property. The Web page is at www.epaosc.org/RiverForestCleaners.
It was posted by Brad Benning, the clean-up coordinator the U.S. EPA's regional office has assigned to this case. Benning, who is with the Chicago office's Emergency Response Branch, will be updating this page as federal attention to the work continues.
In a Jan. 13 letter to Benning, Mark D. Johnson, a scientist with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said that sub-slab samples (those taken from below basement levels) suggest that site contaminants have migrated from River Forest Drycleaners to areas under the buildings housing My Gym Children's Fitness Center and St. Luke's school. According to U.S. EPA conclusions, that migration has likely occurred northward through sand formations and eastward along utility pipes.
Johnson, a senior environmental health scientist for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, which is a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, writes that "groundwater monitoring wells show perc concentrations increasing from 340 ppb to 11,000 ppb from 2001 to 2009. Some soil saturation for perc is at 940,000 ppb."
The abbreviation "ppb" stands for parts per billion.
The EPA report gives a qualified OK to My Gym, which is next door to River Forest Cleaners, and to St. Luke's school, which is across the street. While it concludes that there is no short-term threat from the presence of the migrating chemicals under either My Gym or St. Luke's School, it calls for a "more comprehensive assessment of contamination migration" affecting both sites.
Noting that groundwater and soil samples, "exceed Tier 2 screening levels for TACO (Tiered Approach to Corrective Action Objectives)," the report recommends that a residential standard be applied to the evaluation of the interiors at My Gym and St. Luke's School, "where children may occupy the space for a significant portion of the day."
One chemical detected at the River Forest Drycleaners site, 7613 Lake, is methylene chloride, which was also detected in a sub-slab (below the basement foundation) sample taken from St. Luke's. Traces of the chemical were also detected "in the computer room at a level that slightly exceeded the recommended health-based long-term indoor air screening level," the report states. "TCE, another site contaminant, was detected in the sub-slab samples and also in the computer room at a level slightly less than the long-term screening level."
The EPA Web page notes that removal of the contaminated soil from the dry cleaner site and adjacent properties "would require an extensive effort." The 7613 Lake property, which is owned by Hillside resident Edward Ditchfield, is eligible for as much as $300,000 in approved remediation costs from the Illinois Drycleaner Environmental Response Trust Fund, pending approval of a remediation plan by the Illinois EPA.
Ditchfield has been working with the Illinois EPA since June 2004 to craft such a plan.
Staff reports
