[CPEO-BIF] "Chemical vapors contaminate hundreds of properties across Minnesota"

[Lenny Siegel]

Silent but toxic, chemical vapors contaminate hundreds of properties across Minnesota

By Josephine Marcotty 
Minneapolis Star Tribune (MN)
February 25, 2017 

You can’t see it. You can’t smell it.

But toxic vapor rising from soils contaminated decades ago by industrial solvents is creating new and expensive headaches for property owners across Minnesota.

Pollution officials have identified hundreds of sites across the state that are contaminated by “vapor intrusion,” and this month they began rolling out a new set of rules requiring property owners to test for vapors and address them before transferring property.

Even as state officials scramble to understand the scope of the problem, business owners are facing millions of dollars in new costs to make their buildings - and their neighbors’ buildings - safe from the carcinogenic fumes that collect inside from widely used solvents long since discarded.

...

For the entire article, see
http://m.startribune.com/silent-but-toxic-chemical-vapors-contaminate-hundreds-of-properties-across-minnesota/414787933/?section=local

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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel at cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org