The class action lawsuit against Madison Kipp Corporation, settled in 2013, seems like eons ago. Have Kipp’s pollution problems been resolved?
Far from it. PCBs remain in soils under the factory at very high (Superfund) levels and continue to seep through storm drains into the raingarden along the public bike path, where adults, children, and pets walk and play every day. As for Kipp’s toxic air pollution, the waxy-oily burnt smell of the die casting fumes, and the noise of its 24-7 operations…these problems never go away.
A more insidious, invisible and odorless threat still lurks below the whole neighborhood. Highly toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs)—tetrachloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethyelene (TCE)—and their breakdown products, including vinyl chloride, remain in the groundwater plume beneath the area, stretching many hundreds of feet to the east and west of Kipp, north past Milwaukee Street and south to Lake Monona.
The class action lawsuit settled in 2013 primarily addressed the VOC vapors seeping into homes from contaminated soils and groundwater, and as part of the settlement over 70 homeowners near Kipp were offered vapor mitigation systems that—if working properly—keep harmful levels of chemical vapors from entering homes.
However, as vapor intrusion expert Lenny Siegel wrote in his fall 2017 report, VOC vapor levels in homes near Kipp were never assessed after the mitigation systems were installed—so nobody knows if they have been working to lower the VOCs in these homes to safe levels. Vapor intrusion was never assessed at the Goodman Community Center, just north of Kipp, and Siegel’s report strongly recommended that it should be assessed there.[1]
Meanwhile, DNR allowed Kipp to stop monitoring many of the soil vapor probes around the edges of the Kipp site—intended to assess whether vapors are moving offsite, posing threats to houses and other buildings nearby. City/county and state public health agencies approved this—or said nothing.
But a few vapor probes remain around Kipp, and levels of PCE and TCE in soil gas behind the home on the northern end of S. Marquette St.—which have historically been the highest–are rising again, despite the fact that Kipp’s soil vapor extraction (SVE) system has operated nearby for several years. VOC levels at this probe are now well above the screening levels that are meant to serve as red flags to prompt action. See the table with these results, from Kipp’s March 2018 semi-annual report, here.
Why are vapor levels at this probe increasing again? Is anyone talking to people living in this house and other nearby homes? Is anyone making sure their mitigation systems are actually working to keep VOCs out of their homes?
Talking to people in the homes near this probe would be a job for Public Health Madison Dane County or the Wisconsin Department of Health Services. Are they even paying attention? There’s no evidence that they are.[2]
So what?
Last week, a good friend of mine on S. Marquette St. died from complications after colon cancer surgery–her third cancer diagnosis since 2012.
PCE and TCE are carcinogens. They also are associated with a raft of developmental, neurological, immune system and other health problems. These problems may not show up until years, if not decades, after exposures.
My friend’s home was right next to three homes found to have high VOC levels in soils and/or subslabs in 2010-2011, before most people had even heard of Kipp’s groundwater contamination. With the lawsuit pending, in late 2011 Kipp rushed to put a vapor mitigation system on her home before it was tested for vapor levels.
My friend sent many strongly worded emails to public officials asking why her home hadn’t been tested. Eventually, a single test was done of her indoor air in April 2012. Shockingly, nobody knows if her mitigation system was off or on when the test was done, but evidence indicates that it was on. The PCE level found was 0.17 ppbv (under the screening level at the time of 0.6 ppbv). She was told she was safe. However, if this system was on, the PCE level shouldn’t have been 0.17 ppbv–it should have been much lower, below the detection level. The system wasn’t working as it should. But no further tests were done.
Also, according to EPA, DHS and DNR guidances, one test on one date (and in one season) isn’t adequate to assess whether or not vapor intrusion was occurring in her home. None of the homes near Kipp were tested enough times to adequately assess vapor intrusion according to the technical guidances.
Further, there is plenty of good evidence now that vapor mitigation systems, especially when not installed correctly, do not always reduce vapor levels effectively. The one test done in my friend’s house with the system on supports this. Vapor levels in homes should be assessed after systems are installed to see if they are reducing VOCs to safe levels—and if they aren’t, the systems should be fixed so that they are. In some cases, more than one mitigation system needs to be installed to reduce VOCs to safe levels.
Does anyone care?
Did my friend’s three cancers have anything to do with her exposures to Kipp’s chemical emissions?
Kipp started using PCE in the 1940s and vented the vapors right behind my friend’s house; the vented VOCs then seeped into the soil and groundwater under her home. So, she was exposed to VOC vapors through her childhood and the three decades she lived in the home as an adult.
We’ll never have definitive, scientific evidence that her cancers were from exposures to Kipp’s toxic emissions. Aside from the one test in 2012 (again, we don’t know whether the system was off or on, so its meaning is unclear), VOC levels were never assessed in her home or coming out of the vents and stacks behind it. Chemicals and particulates coming from Kipp’s stacks or in neighborhood air have not been assessed. Health studies in the neighborhood, which the community asked for for many years, were never done.
Scientific evidence (or lack thereof) aside, using common sense—do you think my friend’s exposures to Kipp’s carcinogens contributed in any way to her three cancers?
Also, regardless of the lack of scientific evidence, I would expect that anyone with common sense and compassion—and a solid understanding of the precautionary principle—would agree that everything possible should have been done to protect my friend from further exposures to carcinogens after her first and second cancer diagnoses, and certainly after her third. This would mean testing her home to assure that VOC levels were below detection levels. The last thing a cancer survivor needs is to be breathing carcinogens every day in her home.
Apparently government officials responsible for protecting public health do not understand what the precautionary principle means.
After I learned of my friend’s third cancer diagnosis, just a few weeks ago (when her prognosis was still good and she was expected to return home), I contacted Public Health Madison Dane County and asked if they would assure that vapor levels in my friend’s house were appropriately assessed and addressed before she went home.
Nobody responded.
[1] City and state agencies, and Kipp, worked together to discredit Mr. Siegel and to rebut and/or dismiss the recommendations in his report. None of his recommendations were followed.
[2] Vapor levels are also increasing again at the vapor probe next to the bike path across from the Goodman Community Center—near the toxic hotspot we wrote about in a post years ago. This probe and others along the bike path were originally intended as sentinel probes to assess if toxic vapors were moving north toward the community center. Whey are levels there increasing again? Is anyone even asking?
