WLOS News 13 will be airing Mike Mason’s 6 month Investigative Piece: Buried Secrets on Monday 11-18-13 at 4pm-
The residents of South Asheville and the Mills Gap Community Advisory Group will hold a Special TownHall Meeting to view the unprecedented 1 Hour Special-
The location is at the Skyland Fire Department on Miller Road, just off Hendersonville Road. The airing begins at 4pm and the TownHall will be held in the main conference hall at the Skyland Fre Department-
There will be a press conference afterwards, as this program will be breaking new information into what happened to our community that sickened, killed and ruined lives here-
Please see if you can get the word out-
This is very important as a public service announcement –
Thanks-
Tate MacQueenMills Gap Concerned Citizens for a CTS CleanupVice President
Back in July, WLOS reporter Mike Mason led a townhall discussion of the decades-long pollution problem at the site and previewed the special report, which will offer more information about residents who say they’ve been sickened after drinking contaminated groundwater. The report will also contain new interviews with former employees, new documents showing what the Environmental Protection Agency knew about contaminated areas and interviews with officials in Washington, D.C.
The report also comes during one of the most critical times of the year for WLOS – the “sweeps” rating period.
9 Comments
It’s too bad I haven’t got any comments about pertinent info on TCE contamination at the ‘CTS’ site.
Without a doubt,’chemophobia’ IS rampant in the populace…
Just for people’s information, I currently live <1 mile from the CTS site. I can see it up on the hill when winter comes and the leaves fall off the trees.
I used to work for DuPont, who used to store ground-up polyester and silver removed from old x-rays. I was around before the old CTS plant was taken down.
Below is just one of the columns I wrote about CTS. I pity those poor people who truly believe that TCE has caused them problems. It seems 'chemophobia' is rampant in the populace. Please call if you have any questions.
Kevin Roeten
Asheville (Arden) NC
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Media Has Residents In Fits Over CTS Superfund Site
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Tuesday’s report by the local TV station (WLOS) has ignited the locals’ once again. WLOS said 129 homes would be put on city water, with a city loan of $3,000,000.
The CTS site (1970’s) in Asheville, NC, has contaminated the groundwater with trichloroethylene (TCE), used for cleaning prior to electroplating. Contamination has purportedly caused at least 50 local people (within mile CTS) to get cancer. To date, any true cases have never been linked directly with TCE exposure.
In 1985, EPA conducted a Preliminary Assessment of CTS, but found no evidence of contamination. No further action was recommended.
In 1991, after CTS notified NC of contamination, EPA conducted a sampling investigation and discovered some chlorinated solvents. However, this investigation failed to find any widespread problem.
In 1993, NC added CTS to their Inactive Hazardous Waste Site Priority list for further investigation.
In 1999, following a complaint from NCDENR citing a spring supplying water to two homes next to CTS. There was TCE detected at two residential wells. EPA responded with bottled water to the affected families.
In 2001, and again in 2006, EPA conducted more in-depth investigations of the site. In both instances, it concluded CTS did not qualify for the National Priorities List (NPL). Nevertheless, a Soil Vapor Extraction System (SVE) was started in 2006, and TCE-laden groundwater was aerated.
In 2008, EPA began to monitor all wells quarterly, until it was no longer deemed necessary. From monitoring, the EPA did not detected any additional TCEs. However in 2009, EPA sampled a residential well not on the monitoring network, and found it to contain TCE. EPA supplied the residents with bottled water.
In March of 2012, the old CTS of Asheville property on Mills Gap Road was officially named a Superfund site, and placed on the NPL List. About that time, the EPA and CTS reached an agreement to put water filters in the homes, affected by ground and surface water contaminated by any chemicals used on the site.
Bottom line—the Time Weighted Average (TWA) per the ACGIH (in 1990) was 50 ppm. Today, that number has been reduced to 10 site visits w/crews of >8, ‘clean’ water, analyses, and other costs.
TCE is not a chemical for which to be played. Of course, chemicals like “di-hydrogen oxide” can cause breathing problems, global warming, and even death with ingestion of >70 gallons in a day. It took over 25 years for the EPA to proclaim CTS a Superfund Site, and over $7 million in wasted expenditures.
This, from a rogue Chemical Engineer who lives within 1 mile of this CTS site. Evidently, raw unbridled emotions can be a powerful thing.
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Kevin Roeten can be reached at roetenks@charter.net.
I just wanted to let people know the “Buried Secrets” special will be just over an hour and will likely run until 5:15pm — going into our 5pm newscast. So if you want to set your DVR for this please do so with that in mind. We will also be streaming the show “live” on our website “wlos.com” — it may take a few days to write an actual script for our website but I am working on it. Airing this special during the ratings month wasn’t anticipated, we completed the show at this time. It’s not running during a regular news time slot and that’s why I’m trying my best to promote it so folks who are working at that time or can’t be home at 4pm can at least DVR it.
Thanks!
Mike Mason
HTML link didn’t come through, here’s Dunsmith’s six-minute 2010 talk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbOBbYIasVI
Sorry off-topic, but is anyone looking into the DENR statement that there may be a whole new previously-unknown basin of gas shale to frack in “Western North Carolina”? Just curious.
sorry, just re-read….
So, WLOS, has produced a documentary about the CTS site pollution, but ISN’T airing it on their own station, but instead in a fire house in the middle of nowhere?
Please correct me.
From 2010, a powerful 6-minute talk from a young man who lives in Arden and played in the creek near the CTS site as a child. He was diagnosed with thyroid cancer at 11 years old. According to his talk, his physician told him that the chance of a child aged 10 and under getting thyroid cancer is one in a million.
I’m grateful to Mike Mason and WLOS for stepping up and shining a light on this issue, sweeps week or not. Also grateful for the shocking addition of real reporters to the WLOS staff. More reporting like this, please.
This is video of the 7.8.13 townhall meeting on CTS contamination.
http://youtu.be/u1wlYzkthys