Residents seek answers about plume.

Byline: Diane Dietz The Register-Guard

Residents of the Trainsong neighborhood living above a plume of polluted water asked why environmental officials didn't tell them about the toxic vapors collecting in their crawl spaces.

Their neighbors - at meeting Thursday to learn about a declaration that the vapors were a health hazard - wanted to know why the state wouldn't test their crawl spaces to see if they, too, had the problem.

That sort of reassurance isn't too much to ask, said Kasey White, who recently bought a house about a block from houses where the pollution is confirmed.

"Just being that close, we should have the right to have our (house) tested," she said.

About 100 people attended a three-hour meeting and asked dozens of questions of public health and environmental cleanup officials.

The pollution is from cancer-causing solvents spilled over a 100-year period in the railyard north of the neighborhood. The chemicals have formed an extensive underground plume in the groundwater under the Trainsong and the River Road neighborhoods.

Union Pacific attorney Robert Bylsma said the railyard cleanup is complicated and that the railroad is working cooperatively with the state on a cleanup plan.

In Trainsong, where the solvent concentrations are the highest, the solvent is evaporating and collecting as vapor in the crawl spaces of an unknown number of homes.

The maximum levels found in the crawl spaces of some of the homes could increase the cancer risk of somebody living there for decades, producing seven extra cancers per 10,000 residents, said Jae Douglas, epidemiologist for the federally funded Superfund Health Investigation and Education program.

Douglas declared the vapors a "public health hazard" and recommended that the residents with the highest concentrations of solvent vapor in their crawl spaces get their indoor air tested to see how much of the chemical they're actually breathing.

"I don't think there's reason to be fearful," she said.

Douglas also tried to reassure River Road residents that the level of chemical found in their well water was not high enough to increase their cancer risk, as long as they didn't drink the water.

Residents should go ahead and use that well water for washing cars and watering gardens, but, just to be extra cautious, they should fill their children's wading pools with city water to avoid any exposure to the chemical, she said.

But the advice doesn't set well with some residents.

"They say don't put it in your kid's wading pool but it's OK to eat it?" organic gardener Nancy Lewis said.

Renters in the Trainsong neighborhood said they were in the dark about the contaminant plume and the solvents, which tests have detected in the past two years.

"The first time I heard about this was this week through a reporter," said Dianna Jones, who lived on Bethel Avenue for a dozen years.

Greg Aitken, railroad cleanup project manager for the Department of Environmental Quality, said it's the public's right to have access to the information - and renters living in the tested houses should promptly get the results.

"It sounds like that's a problem and that's not acceptable," he said.

But Aitken did not promise to test crawl spaces for the homeowners and renters who asked. "The answer is no. I'll be honest with you," he said.

The DEQ doesn't have the money and doesn't have the technical basis to compel the railroad to do a lot more testing, he said.

Politicians, too, worried about a lack of information. State Rep. Chris Edwards, D-Eugene, wanted to know how the state would inform successive renters that the groundwater is contaminated and the crawl spaces and wells could have problems. The state officials said they hadn't answered that question yet.

Seventy-eight percent of homes in the neighborhood are occupied by renters.

Mayor Kitty Piercy said she was frustrated by efforts to even communicate with the railroad. She said her phone calls are bounced from place to place.

LEARN MORE

Health researchers wrote a report about pollution in crawl spaces in the Trainsong Neighborhood and pollution in wells in the River Road Neighborhood.

See the study: www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/ shine/uprrsite.shtml

Public comment: Deadline is June 28. Call [phone] for information.