No easy way to decontaminate

68 Glen Park homes in peril

"We're sort of on a huge learning curve," says Leanne Darrigo, of efforts to mitigate damage from a contaminated Glen Park site. (DAVID KAMERMAN/GLOBE STAFF/FILE 2007)

To protect yourself against pollution, Cambridge songwriter Tom Lehrer once recommended, "don't drink the water and don't breathe the air."

The latter may be necessary for some Glen Park residents, who have started protecting their houses from a plume formed by the toxic chemical percholoethylene six years after inspectors discovered the problem.

A report filed with the state Department of Environmental Protection last week describes the full extent of the contaminated site, which the department considers one of the most serious in its purview.

About 40 people met on July 10 in the Capuano School - which itself has systems protecting six classrooms from the chemical - for a briefing by Tufts University professor Anne Marie Desmarais.

"We're sort of on a huge learning curve," said Leanne Darrigo, coordinator of Friends and Neighbors of Glen Park. The group used a grant to hire Desmarais to explain the situation.

Percholoethylene is a common dry cleaning chemical that permeated the ground after a chemical sales company moved into 50 Tufts St. in the 1950s, Desmarais said.

A prospective owner discovered contamination in 2002 during an aborted sale of the building. In August 2004, consultants found the chemical had seeped under some nearby houses. (A similar situation exists next to now-defunct Crimson Cleaners in Cambridge.)

In the new report, GEI Consultants delineated the affected area, which includes 68 houses, the school, and 12 additional commercial buildings, said Irene Dale of the state environmental department. Of the 61 houses tested, 28 have the chemical in their basement air; 11 have mitigation systems in place or on the way.

"Over many years, that exposure could result in a potential for adverse health effects," Desmarais said at the meeting. Exposure in the workplace has been linked to central nervous system problems, cancer, and liver disease.

The only way residents can be exposed, Desmarais emphasized, was through "vapor coming from the ground water getting into your house."

The area's drinking water comes from 90 miles away, and the chemical lies too far underground to affect gardens, she said, "unless you're growing a super carrot with a root 15 feet deep. And if you're growing that, I will buy the seeds from you."

The 50 Tufts St. property has started running a soil vapor-extraction system to suck the chemical out of the ground. The new report sets allowable commercial uses for the building, which is currently used by John's Auto Sales for storage, Darrigo said.

However, the experts recommended mitigation for homes, not cleanup. Due to the chemical's properties, it could take 40 years to get out of the ground, Desmarais said.

GEI recommended three different systems to prevent contaminated water vapor from entering basements. These systems include such steps as repointing stone walls, pouring new concrete, or installing a fan.

UniFirst, which formerly owned the building and funded GEI's work, will pay for installation, maintenance, and energy use for any system. Residents must sign an agreement not to damage the vapor barrier by, for instance, drilling holes in the basement.

The requirement bothered Cheryl Etoniru of Bridgewater, 50, whose elderly mother's house at 82 Franklin St. tested positive for percholoethylene. "The agreement you're talking about is a perpetual easement for your home," she said.

Other attendees worried about the impact on housing prices. Desmarais said that horse had already left the barn: "The contamination is here. The property value is going to be a whole lot higher with the mitigation in place than without it." If residents undergo the recommended process, she added, their houses will be "perfectly clean."

The long-term nature of the situation raised the question of how to protect residents should UniFirst go out of business down the road. Three of the parties found responsible - 50 Tufts St. Inc., John Denais, and Somerville 2 LLC - "aren't really responding," Desmarais said. Darrigo said the association is not currently pursuing a lawsuit.

Denais and 50 Tufts St. owned the building when the contamination was discovered, but have run out of money, Dale said. Somerville 2 LLC currently holds the mortgage for the bank.

Etoniru hadn't decided whether to pursue mitigation measures. "We don't know what to do - are they being forthright?" she said afterward.

She also believes the work didn't go far enough. "If this were a neighborhood with different socioeconomics. . . . I think they would be cleaning it up and getting it out instead of sealing it."

Dale disagreed. "We are providing more oversight to this than we are any other site," she said afterward. She expects the site to be contaminated for decades to come.

Site reports are on the city website www.somervillema.gov/.