Dry cleaner on Monroe Ave. reports release of solvents
A third dry cleaner in a three-block stretch of Monroe Avenue in Brighton has reported releases of toxic solvents into the environment, adding to an already complicated cleanup effort that began in the neighborhood six years ago.
Dry-cleaning solvents released from two other sites have flowed through groundwater under homes near Monroe Avenue a few blocks southeast of Twelve Corners, an area that also sustained a major gasoline spill in 2003. Several dozen homes and businesses there have been tested for harmful vapors in recent years, and special ventilation systems were installed in 15 structures, most of them residences.
The latest problem is at Town and Country Cleaners at 2308 Monroe Ave., where New York state-funded sampling has found that soil and groundwater near its building is contaminated with tetrachloroethene, a common dry-cleaning solvent, and related chemicals.
The solvent, also known as PCE, has been found in groundwater under the rear of the property at levels as much as 14,800 times higher than the state standard. Other potentially more harmful solvents are present there at hundreds of times the applicable standards.
To date, there’s no indication that the solvents are moving toward the homes that lie east and north of the property, though more study is in the works.
“We have pretty significant contamination in that back lot that needs more investigation. We need to know if it’s left that property, and how far it might go,” said Bart Putzig, who heads hazardous-waste remediation at the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s regional office in Avon, Livingston County.
A company that intends to purchase the property was formally offered a place in the state brownfield cleanup program last Tuesday.
That company, Town and Country Redevelopment LLC, is responsible for doing additional studies on the L-shaped property parcel with an eye toward developing a cleanup plan. Those studies also are supposed to provide more information about the extent to which contaminants have moved through groundwater under adjoining properties.
If solvents are affecting other properties, any needed cleanup there would be the responsibility of the DEC or any operators of the dry cleaners judged responsible for the toxic release.
The company, whose ownership was not clear Friday, said through a spokesman it would withhold substantive comment until it had finalized the brownfield agreement with the DEC.
Thomas Low, the Brighton public works superintendent, said the town has informed the DEC that the company should provide a “robust” public information campaign.
“Overall, we supported the (brownfield) application just to have a way to find out how bad the problem is, where it’s spread, how much of a health problem it represents,” Low said. “Right now, we don’t know anything more than that these solvents are in the groundwater around the building in excess of state standards.”
The area is served by piped-in public drinking water, so the contamination poses no health threat to that supply.
The primary concern would be the possibility that PCE vapors could travel upward from tainted groundwater and infiltrate building basements. The health effects of long-term exposure to low levels of solvent vapors, if any, are not certain.
But state officials often install ventilation systems to guard against such exposures to PCE or to trichloroethene (TCE), a more dangerous chemical that can be formed when PCE breaks down in the environment.
This is a familiar problem for that section of central Brighton. Solvent releases were traced in 2004 to Carriage Cleaners at 2101 Monroe Ave. and in 2007 to the former Speedy’s Cleaners at 2150 Monroe, both about two blocks northwest of Town and Country.
A final cleanup plan for Carriage Cleaners is due this winter, DEC spokeswoman Maureen Wren said. Studies designed to lead to a cleanup recommendation are under way now at the former Speedy’s site, she said.
The state is paying for work at both sites, she said. Carriage Cleaner had paid for earlier work but told agency lawyers it was “financially unable” to underwrite full-scale remediation, she said, though the DEC will continue to press for reimbursement.
State officials say they believe they have installed ventilation systems in all properties threatened by releases at the first two dry cleaners and from the gasoline spill.
It was a spill of 8,000 gallons at a former Citgo station at 2087 Monroe Ave. in September 2003 that started a chain of events that led to discovery of all the dry-cleaner problems. Gas spread through town storm sewers and vapors began wafting into homes, prompting emergency ventilation efforts by firefighters and the DEC.
As that spill was being traced through soil and groundwater, officials found PCE near Carriage Cleaners. Then as that solvent spill was investigated, it was discovered that Speedy’s, which closed 20 years ago at the Monroe Avenue location, had spilled solvents as well.
This latest PCE contamination was discovered by the owner of a commercial property next door, which tested its property in preparation for a sale, Putzig said.
“It seems like on every block on Monroe Avenue there’s issues,” said Alan Knauf, a prominent environmental lawyer in Rochester who represented residents in a lawsuit over the first two solvent releases and the gasoline spill. “The old dry cleaners — they almost all have issues. It’s a solvent and … you don’t even need to have somebody dump it or spill it — it just gets everywhere.”
The lawsuit against the gas station owner, the two earlier dry cleaners and the town was resolved in May 2008, but Knauf said he was not able to discuss the matter further.
