Source: http://journaltimes.com, August 18, 2015
By: Michael Burke
More than nine years after a cancer-causing dry-cleaning chemical was found at a north side strip center, the building has been razed to allow a soil and groundwater cleanup to begin.
The strip center in the 3900 block of North Main Street included a longtime dry-cleaning shop. It is now the site of an investigation and cleanup being overseen by the state Department of Natural Resources.
The contamination was reported to the DNR in May 2006 when the strip center’s owners, the Ehrlich family partnership, had a buyer for the property. Because the center included a longtime dry-cleaning business at 3941 N. Main St., testing for contaminants was required, and carcinogenic perchloroethylene, or “perc,” was discovered on the property.
The next question was whether the carcinogen had moved into a garden area immediately east of the strip center property, at 3936 North Bay Ave., and the answer turned out to be yes. In July 2007, tests on soil samples found that perc had moved into the land parcel then owned by SC Johnson.
SCJ, which had allowed volunteers to grow food there for the Racine County Food Bank, immediately halted the harvesting of vegetables in the 145- by 125-foot garden. The company took that precautionary step, even though an environmental scientist who was advising the Ehrlich partnership said the plants would not have picked up the chemical. The land plot has not been gardened since.

Contamination

Nancy Ryan, a hydrologist in the DNR’s Remediation and Redevelopment Program, said the investigation since then established that perc-containing solvents are also in the ground beneath where the dry-cleaning machines had been. The building was demolished to gain access to the contamination, and the Ehrlich partnership also bought the former garden area from SCJ to make the cleanup easier, she said.
Outside of where the building sat, solvents may have entered the soil from drum storage and gone into the former garden via runoff, Ryan said.
As to whether there is danger to people in the area from contaminated groundwater, Ryan said: “It doesn’t look like it’s moved off-site.”
Very soon, Ryan said, the DNR should get results of a pilot test of the proposed method of neutralizing the perc in the two properties. If the method is approved, remediation will begin: The soil would be treated with an amendment that will create chemical oxidation and break down the solvents.
That will be followed by two years of groundwater sampling, and the DNR expects to close the case in August 2017, Ryan said.

‘Significant’ costs

The cost will be significant, she said, and the Ehrlich family partnership is enrolled in the DNR’s Dry Cleaner Environmental Response Fund. After a $10,000 deductible the program — funded by a fee that dry-cleaning businesses pay — will reimburse environmental cleanup costs of up to $500,000. Ryan did not know what this project’s costs will total.
Bill Scott, the Ehrlich partnership’s lawyer in the case, declined to comment.
Ryan gave several reasons as to why the environmental cleanup has been delayed for numerous years after the cancer-causing chemical was discovered. None of the original remediation action proposals were deemed acceptable in the first round of bidding the work, and different companies had different strategies.
Also, the Ehrlich partnership had negotiations with SCJ to buy the former garden parcel, and then there was a second round of bidding for remediation action plans.