"Fumes could enter Minneapolis homes from the soil, once contaminated with a solvent from an old General Mills lab."
"Residents and businesses in a southeast Minneapolis neighborhood have been alerted to potentially harmful vapors that may be entering buildings from the soil, a remnant of decades-old contamination from a defunct General Mills facility.
State health and pollution control officials are seeking owners’ permission to test the soil beneath 200 buildings in the Como neighborhood for trichloroethylene, or TCE, which can lead to cancer or immune-system disorders if people are exposed to high levels for long periods.
Recent testing of soil gas below streets and sidewalks in the neighborhood found levels of TCE that do not suggest imminent health risks but were sufficient to require investigation of the ground beneath the buildings, said Hans Neve, a supervisor with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s (MPCA) Superfund program."
Jeremy Olson and Matt McKinney report for the Minneapolis Star Tribune November 7, 2013.
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