On Monday night, State and County officials released raw testing data related to the TCI fire in Ghent. No executive summary or other analysis was provided, except for broad assurances that the data was no cause for concern. Though a staffer at the State Department of Health stated that his agency was several days away from having such a document completed, officials went ahead with a call for an end to further testing.
Ghent resident Deborah Masters, who lives approximately 6 miles due east of the TCI fire site, has provided this site with an analysis of that technical data, after consulting with an engineering colleague. Masters ascertained that the limited testing was done by a company called Clean Harbors and processed by Adirondack Environmental Services in Albany. But when she spoke with a company rep (Tara Daniels) she would “only confirm their testing, and would not have any further conversation.”
In her opinion, using the PCB tests “as an excuse not to do further wipe tests on people’s properties is very strange,” yet typical of such agencies. “The very high levels of toxic fumes the residents may have breathed through their windows while sleeping,” she says, “were also never recorded.”
Masters writes that “the most troubling thing” about the situation “is not having air sampling from Thursday night or Friday day during the burn period of this fire. I suspect that there were samples taken, just not ones they are prepared to share with us.” She encourages residents to send Freedom of Information Law requests to the agencies responsible to attempt to secure that data.
Masters went on to discuss with her engineer the topic of
“why no VOC [Volatile Organic Compound] tests, which are more immediate tests, cheaper tests, and can’t be done once a hot fire is over, were never taken. Any mobile lab prepared for testing PCBs could easily test for VOCs.
“The other tests not taken, or at least not delivered to us, were tests for furans which result from burned plastics which the PCB byrms were made of (huge, heavy double-walled plastic bowls at the bottom of each PCB containment vessel—there would have been 4 or 5 of these within the facility), and for burning gas and oil which are both EPA-list carcinogens.
“The likely reason for very little soil residue is that very hot fires completely incinerate certain chemicals, which would include anything like toluene, turpentine, etc.
Regarding the presence of large amounts of mineral oil, Masters says that this “is used as a substitute in which to put PCBs after they are removed from the oil they used to be stored in.” She notes that only PCB sampling has been done, and that in at least one case the results ought to have led to more localized testing:
“They have tested for different kinds of PCBs, but the samples all read as ND (or non-detect), except for sample Aroclor 1260 which tested at 131 ppb (parts per billion), which is higher than the NYSDEC allowable limit of 100 ppb. This is one of the soil samples on the top left of the map. The over-the-limit level indicates that they should do grid sampling in that area to determine if there are oher high levels in that geographic area, but a wider area.
“They often use this kind of sampling to indicate that ‘there is no reason to do further sampling’ as all the samples, except one, are non-detect. However there are different soil and air samples from the map which have no indicated readings. These samples are listed on the map as AR, DT [and] DR. DT is listed in the legend as "dust track", and my engineer thinks the AR is at least an air sample, probably a troubling sample, as there is no information listed.
On a technical level, Masters explains for those trying to puzzle out these forms that the header “PCB TOTAL < 1.0 ug/100cm2” means less than 1 microgram per 100 centimeters squared. The notation “Surr.” means “surrogate,” indicating that the testing regimen used “a measured quantity of another chemical which acts as a control to verify the PCB sample methodology and specifies the percentage of recovery in the sample. So the sample of PCBs is spiked with the chemical surrogate, for accurate testing.” The abbreviation PQL means Practical Quanitation Limit, or the percentage range of recovery of materail from the sample.
Regarding the sampling of soil and surface water on the ground, Masters says that oils (found on a film on the water samples) were “collected by Westin Solutions on Thursday Aug 2nd and delivered to Accutest LabLink at 5:54 PM Saturday, Aug 4th. The wipe tests were collected on Friday Aug 3rd by Clean Harbors and analyzed by Adirondack Environmental Services between 12:20 am – 2:20 am Saturday Aug. 4.”
Masters says that her engineer agreed that citizens and officials should be on the lookout for the following:
- Whether fire responders in the 9 different fire companys were properly notified of what was onsite before being sent to fight an inferno there;
- Whether a sufficient Evacuation Plan was on file with the Office of Emergency Management, and whether citizen members were serving on that board;
- Whether NYS DEC conducted sufficient inspections of the facility;
- Whether TCI properly filed necessary reports to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory database, and the RTK database; and
- Whether the community was properly notified of the potential catastrophe in progress.
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