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Low contamination risk found in vicinity of former Cook Street Village dry cleaner

Cook Street Village residents with land contaminated by toxic dry-cleaning chemicals say they’re concerned about property values, potential health risks and cleanup plans.
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McKenzie Street resident Stephen Ban examines test equipment in his yard. Ban was not aware of the contamination when he bought his house in May around the corner from the former site of Fairfield Cleaners at 325 Cook St.

Cook Street Village residents with land contaminated by toxic dry-cleaning chemicals say they’re concerned about property values, potential health risks and cleanup plans.

But early studies suggest the risks are low, said a spokeswoman for Franz Environmental Inc., which will present the preliminary risk assessment results at a public meeting later this month. Franz Environmental also will outline how far the contaminants have spread from the former dry-cleaning site at 325 Cook St.

“I think most people are concerned about two things: First, about how the cleanup is going to go and who’s going to pay for it,” said Stephen Ban, a McKenzie Street resident. “And secondly, people with children are concerned about them playing in the yards, and people with gardens are concerned about whether the food’s contaminated or not.”

Ban was not aware of the contamination when he bought his house around the corner from the former facility in May.

Scientists believe the chemicals leaked from an underground storage unit found at the former site of Fairfield Cleaners, which operated from the 1970s until 2007. In addition to heating oils, they identified PERC, also known as perchloroethylene or tetrachloroethylene, in the surrounding area, said Jan Abbott, an environmental scientist with Franz Environmental.

PERC is used as a grease and oil-stain remover. It has been linked to esophageal and cervical cancer in dry-cleaning staff, as well as to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, according to CAREX Canada, which includes a team of researchers from the University of Victoria.

Increased regulation of PERC’s storage and disposal has meant a considerable decrease in exposures over the last 30 years, according to CAREX. Exposure most commonly occurs through inhalation.

Franz Environmental has spent the past two months drilling at properties on McKenzie, Oxford, Chester, Linden and Chapman streets to determine the area of contamination. Most contaminants were found in the groundwater moving southeast at a rate of about one metre per year, Abbott said.

Residents shouldn’t be concerned for their health because they don’t have direct contact with the groundwater, she said. All municipal water provided to the homes comes from the Sooke Lake Reservoir.

“The other good thing about it is PERC is denser than water, so it sinks. So the contamination is at a depth where, if you were doing any excavation or gardening or anything like that, you wouldn’t be exposed to it,” Abbott said.

The Ministry of Environment also identified benzene, trichloroethene and vinyl chloride as substances of concern. However, there is no indication of any immediate or significant health concerns based on investigations to date, the ministry said.

The next step will be to undertake a more thorough risk assessment, which will also identify any environmental threats, Abbott said. That will be followed by a remediation plan, which might mean removing the contaminants or managing their effects through processes like vapour extraction in buildings.

It’s unknown whether Fairfield Cleaners complied with regulations — but the contamination may have occurred before the rules were in place, Abbott said.

“Who knows how they disposed of their dry-cleaning waste, whether they were dry cleaning them on-site or off-site, how they were storing it, the integrity of the storage containers? We really don’t know how this happened. We just know that it’s here, and we’re trying to figure out where it is and a way to remediate it.”

The public meeting will be held Nov. 25 from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at the Cook Street Village Activity Centre.

A recent federal investigation found that 21 out of 48 dry cleaners in B.C. were mishandling PERC. None of the dry cleaners identified were operating on Vancouver Island.

Environment Canada would not comment on why certain dry cleaners were targeted in the sweep. A spokesman said the investigation is ongoing.

asmart@timescolonist.com

Cook Street Village