A Burlington Toxic Leak Left Out of Citizen Consciousness

By Julian Barritt

May 6, 2021

In August of 2017, a property owner decided to sell their house on Elmwood Avenue in the Old North End neighborhood of Burlington, Vermont. Prior to the sale, they tested the air inside the house. What they found quickly prompted them to contact the state. They had discovered high levels of chlorinated solvents inside, known carcinogens that can pose a host of serious health risks. 

A year passed before state officials and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) followed up. The contamination garnered attention in the press for the first time on August 7th, 2018, when the EPA began searching for gas from chemical vaporization in the soil on a section of Elmwood Ave between Cedar and Lafountain streets and throughout the surrounding area. By August 8th, as reported in The Burlington Free Press, the EPA was also testing air and soil around Gadue’s Dry Cleaning at 222 Elmwood Ave.

This seemingly pressing issue did not stay under the public gaze for long. After November 4, 2019, it dropped off the map—dissipating into thin air like the chemicals to which it pertains. This article provides updates since the last mention of the issue in the press two years ago, utilizing information independently collected from personal interviews with Kimberly Caldwell and Michael Nahmias, project co-managers for the site, and Sarah Vose, the State Toxicologist. 

In speaking to Nahmias about the risks of the contamination, it was clear that he was not alarmed. He claimed the chemicals were “common contaminants” which have turned up at nearly a dozen sites around Burlington over the years. The EPA’s investigation yielded elevated levels of solvents perchloroethylene (PCE)—also known as tetrachloroethylene and PERC—and trichloroethylene (TCE) concentrated around breaks in a sewer line under the road. They realized that the sewer could have carried the chemicals multiple blocks, delivering the vapors to houses along the street.

Upon further inspection, the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) found 14 houses along the street to have unsafe PCE and TCE levels. Some houses had levels 30 times greater than the indoor level deemed safe by the EPA of 0.63 micrograms per cubic meter.

The DEC traced the contamination to 222 Elmwood Ave, a site occupied by dry cleaning companies since the 1940s, including Lennie’s Shirt Laundry & Dry Cleaners and Gadue’s Dry Cleaning, Inc. The EPA found high levels of PCE below the building that appeared to travel through the sewer to the contamination site under the street. From there, vapors seemed to permeate out from the road to residences, where PCE levels were comparatively lower yet still alarming under the homes.

It is important to note that those living with toxicity on Elmwood Ave are more likely to be racial minorities, New Americans, and poorer than in other parts of the state. In the Old North End, 11% of the population is black, 10% is Asian, and 3% is Hispanic, compared to statewide rates of 1.4%, 1.9%, and 2%, respectively. 7.49% of the neighborhood’s residents were not born in the US (compared to 4.6% statewide) and 7.46% do not have US citizenship. Additionally, 12.15% of the neighborhood is blue-collar, and one resident described it as “a pretty standard US low-income neighborhood,” a “working-class section of Burlington.” These demographics raise questions of who faces the burden of environmental contamination.

Though eight of Vermont’s 10 dry cleaning companies use PCE as of 2018, they dispose of it properly. Conversely, 25 years ago, when Lennie’s and Gadue’s operated, the state did not regulate disposal of the chemical and PCE was frequently dumped into the environment or poured down floor drains. Caldwell attested that Gadue’s was using PCE until the early 1990’sIt was also unintentionally spilled through pipe leaks or vaporized out of dumpsters and air vents. These practices could have been especially concerning if the dry cleaning facility was located in a residential area or near offices or businesses. Caldwell said that the DEC’s current contamination concerns focus on pollution that has persisted in the environment due to the antiquated practices dry cleaning companies used decades ago. 

Regularly used in the dry cleaning process, PCE and TCE are common solvents for cleaning and degreasing, and are found in paints, varnishes, and lubricants, and much more. PCE’s widespread use explains why it is present in 945 of 1,699 of the most hazardous waste sites in the US.

Both chemicals are volatile organic compounds, which means that they vaporize and move from groundwater to open spaces in soil easily. The vapors can enter houses through crevices in foundations, basements, crawl spaces, walls, or floors, and dissipate upwards throughout the house.  

Because it breaks down so slowly, PCE can travel great distances and contaminate groundwater, indoor air, and air pockets in soil for months or years. Conversely, TCE has a short half-life of fewer than seven days in the air.

The toxicity of both chemicals is well known. Both PCE and TCE can disrupt fetal development, damage the nervous system, and cause various cancers. Short-term exposure of just a few hours to PCE can cause dizziness, headaches, sleepiness, confusion, nausea, discoordination, unconsciousness, and even death. In liquid or vapor form, it can irritate the skin, eyes, nose, and throat. Long-term exposure to lower levels of PCE can cause changes in mood, memory, attention, reaction time, and vision.

The DEC spent $86,645 on its initial contamination assessment of various sections of the Old North End and determination of appropriate remedial action in the affected residences. On October 10, 2019, the DEC petitioned the state to increase its budget for the project from $100,000 to $150,000 from the Environmental Contingency Fund, which the Vermont Legislature created in 1985 to control, investigate, and remediate discharge of hazardous waste. State lawmakers approved the request on November 4, 2019. These extra funds now support the DEC in continuing to evaluate the level of environmental contamination of PCE and TCE and whether removal is necessary. 

It is still unclear if this new budget will cover the rest of the needed work as the costs of the remainder of the remediation and long-term monitoring have yet to be determined. Also, Caldwell says that “it is unknown if and when the responsible parties [the dry cleaning companies] will start overseeing the work.” As neither company, Gadue’s nor Lennie’s, has taken responsibility for the contamination, the DEC continues to conduct their work with their state contractor with intentions of recovering costs from “the responsible party” later.

In their October 2019 memorandum, the DEC declared PCE and TCE to be contaminants “which may present an imminent and substantial danger to the public health and welfare or to the environment.” The organization stressed that contamination remediation needed to take place “immediately,” with a particular cause for concern being “continued exposure over the winter months where there isn’t the ability to adequately ventilate the house.” 

Sarah Vose, the Vermont State Toxicologist, assured that the health risks associated with the concentrations of former dry cleaning contamination found on Elmwood Ave are relatively minimal. She affirmed that PCE can increase one’s risk of developing cancer, and that the state’s acceptable levels of vapor exposure are based on 24/7 exposure over 70 years. “Our threshold is if the concentration in the air increases your risk for cancer by 1 in 1 million”; hence, she argues, Vermont’s regulations are quite stringent. She assesses the current situation at Elmwood Ave as not an “acute” or “immediate” health risk. The only present concern is regarding the long-term effects of PCE exposure. 

While some houses exceeded 10 times the state’s recommended exposure level, Vose again emphasized that Vermont has a low threshold for chemical exposure, whereas other states “wouldn’t take action on the levels VT considers a risk.” Similarly, the EPA was hesitant to deem the concentration of PCE vapors a health risk. Vose claimed that the years that have passed since the contamination was first discovered on Elmwood Ave probably have not increased residents’ health risk much due to the low vapor concentrations.  

VTDigger reported on November 4, 2019 that the DEC had begun consultations with a contractor to acquire cost estimates for mitigation efforts to protect occupants of affected houses from these health risks. Potential mitigation included installing vapor barriers to seal cracks in the foundation and walls of basements in the affected houses and installing sub-slab depressurization systems—units that vacuum air from under the basement floor and send toxic vapors from the soil outside through a chimney. 

The DEC provided some basic guidance to residents when they first started sampling soil around the houses. They instructed the households to minimize time in their basements, keep basement doors closed, and only have fans that blow air into the home and not out of it—which would draw air (and possibly vapors) upward into the structure. 

As of November 2020, five houses have received depressurization units, three of which had the highest PCE concentrations. Other homes have concentrations closer to the DEC’s Vapor Intrusion Standard of 0.20 µg/m3 for PCE indoor levels. Five homes exceeded that level in the basement, but not in the rest of the house. Vose explained that homes with higher PCE concentrations in living areas were prioritized for contamination remediation. Many of the houses had high basement levels but may not have had detectable PCE levels on the first floor. 

Some homes are also having vapor barriers installed to seal their basements and are having concrete floors poured if they currently have dirt floors. This is the case for at least one house that will receive a depressurization system.

More houses will be fitted for systems pending scheduling with homeowners. Fitting a house for a unit requires multiple visits to the residence in order to design the unit, have an engineer approve it, and conduct final measurements. Since some residents are uncomfortable having contractors in their houses due to the pandemic, many  DEC installations have been on hold during the pandemic. 

Once the depressurization units are all installed, the contractor will write a long-term maintenance and operation plan entailing an explanation of what is installed in each home, what should happen annually to make sure the units are working, and how residents will be able to tell if the units are malfunctioning so they can contact the DEC. Maintenance obligations will eventually transfer to Gadue’s. In the meantime, the state will make sure things are working properly. 

In the best case scenario, Caldwell said, the DEC will effectively remove the source of the contamination so that depressurization units don’t have to run in perpetuity. If they then monitor the decrease in vapors over time, mitigation will eventually no longer be necessary. Due to uncertainties around the scope of contamination and the nature of PCE’s breakdown, Caldwell had difficulty defining a concrete termination date for the project. 

Vose explained that the project has not been “back-burnered” and that seeing three homes remediated in three years is reasonable progress. With the two additional homes they have assisted more recently, nine remain. She contrasts the situation to EPA superfund sites (the most polluted chemical sites in the country), many of which have not seen any remediation efforts, despite receiving ample funding from Congress. “If you want to see slow progress, look at how slow those have changed,” she said. 

Caldwell theorized that the initial federal involvement (through the EPA)—testing vapors on Elmwood Ave and around the Old North End near Gadue’s Dry Cleaning—was likely responsible for the attention this project received from the media. Additionally, since it wasn’t originally clear to the DEC what the problem was, the state wanted to alert the public. Now that the state DEC has taken over from the EPA  and contamination levels were not determined to necessitate immediate address, there have been no press updates since November of 2019.

It is still unknown how high the concentrations of PCE and TCE will be on Gadue’s former property at 222 Elmwood Ave. High levels could pose a hazard to future owners and clientele of shops or facilities that plan to open there, but it is also possible that the property exhibits minimal contamination and that the various dry cleaning businesses at the site over the years disposed of their PCE and TCE down the drain, leading to off-site contamination by leaking out of the sewer line.

This story presents a theme of unknowns: dry cleaners’ lack of understanding of the toxicity of PCE and TCE and how to dispose of them over the decades, Burlington residents’ lack of awareness of the chemicals in their homes, and the absence of many facets of this issue from the general public’s consciousness. Capitalistic structures let these toxic chemicals make it to store shelves (where they are still being sold) and the state government did not feel that local residents needed to know the details about the contamination, beyond the simple fact that PCE and TCE were found. As the gatherers and possessors of data, the state’s claim to ownership of important information is limiting the ability of the community to determine for itself what action needs to be taken.