Decatur Daily, Martin Burkey
Published July 23, 2006
3M officials say it will be 2007 before they have the results of environmental studies that will tell them what to do about roughly 500 acres on company property contaminated by cancer-causing chemicals.
The company stopped making the Teflon-related chemicals in 2000, but it continues to monitor the soil and water in and around its 1,000-acre facility on Alabama 20. On Monday, officials said they discovered the chemicals in a pond on adjacent property belonging to BP. BP pumps water from a well to recharge the Wetlands Edge Environmental Center. BP stopped pumping water in May, and the artificial wetland area has since dried up.
3M, which now employs about 800 people, produced both perfluorooctyl sulfonates, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in Decatur for about 40 years. The man-made chemicals are found in a variety of water- and stain-repellant products, electrical fluids and firefighting foam, or are used in their production.
3M stopped production in 2000 after studies concluded that the chemicals were widespread in the environment and in the human population and do not break down over time. 3M has since reformulated its popular Scotchguard materials.
It closed and sealed off an 11-acre landfill in 1972, but continued spreading production sludge from its water treatment plan on about 500 acres of fields on the property until the mid-1990s, officials said.
Both the landfill and field application were done under government permit. However, that's where scientists believe most of the offsite migration originates, said Michael Santoro, director of environmental, health, safety and regulatory affairs for the company.
About two parts per billion were found in the soil and water on company property, he said. Similar levels were found in the water in the pond at the wetlands center. Santoro said the pumping could have been drawing the chemical in underground water off the company site more quickly, prompting the decision to stop pumping water. By comparison, city water has about five parts per trillion.
Santoro said a study to characterize the contamination on company property and understand how its moving underground should be complete by 2007. At that point, company and government officials will explore options for remediation if needed, he said.
Because the chemical can't be absorbed through the skin, company and school officials said there's no danger to students who attend programs at the wetlands center.
3M officials say the concentrations found in nature and most of the population, and even the higher concentrations found in their own workers, haven't proved to cause health problems.
"We've done medical monitoring of our employees, and the levels are much higher, and we've seen no adverse affects associated with exposure," Santoro said.
Environmental groups, however, say the Environmental Protection Agency has listed PFOAs and PFOSs as "likely carcinogens" and that animals studies suggest fetal development problems.
"To say there's no health risk, that's accurate in the sense nobody's figured out what's safe yet," said Kristan Markey, a chemist and research analyst for the Environmental Working Group in Washington, D.C. "We know it's in 98 percent of Americans' blood. What we don't understand is where it comes from. The stuff on their fields is not likely to break down any time soon. It lasts for hundreds of years in the environment."
