Testing to come for Kelly residents

Air testing slated for homes near the old Kelly

Anton Caputo and Jerry Needham, Express-News
Residents living over the toxic plume of chemicals from the defunct Kelly AFB long have suspected the contamination of causing everything from birth defects to cancer, despite studies that have failed to find a direct link.

Now federal regulators, under pressure from residents and U.S. Rep Charlie Gonzalez, want to find out if the chemicals in the water beneath the ground could be leaking dangerous vapors into area homes.

Next month, the Environmental Protection Agency will conduct a number of air tests beneath the slabs of homes in the North Kelly Gardens neighborhood and in the homes themselves.

EPA official Gary Miller believes the testing will find some chemical vapors under the slab of homes. But the question is, in what quantities?

"Based on our current review, we're not convinced that we are going to find a problem," he said.

The testing, which will entail drilling a small hole in the concrete slabs, is scheduled to begin May 12 and take about a week.

Miller said he hopes to test 20 homes in the area around 34th Street, Carnation Street and Bay Street, where the groundwater is the most polluted. Depending on the initial results, Miller also wants to conduct indoor air quality testing in about five homes. All is contingent on getting permission from homeowners.

That's fine with Maria Casares, 28, who owns a home on 34th Street.

"Oh, yes," the mother of three said. "That would be good."

Kelly AFB was closed in 2001. Over the decades, solvents and fuel had seeped into the ground, forming a toxic plume in the area's shallow aquifer that's now estimated to stretch some 5 miles beneath more than 20,000 homes and businesses to the south and east of the base.

The contaminants include trichloroethylene, or TCE, which was used to degrease metals. It has been linked to many serious illnesses, particularly, according to a National Academy of Sciences report, kidney cancer. Federal studies have found elevated levels of kidney cancers in two of the ZIP codes around Kelly, but they haven't been linked to TCE.

That aquifer is not used for drinking water. But Casares, like many residents in the neighborhood, still is leery of her tap water, which comes from other sources, and motions to the large blue water bottles stacked in her yard as evidence.

At the other end of 34th Street, Joe Banda, 44, has similar concerns about the water that lies beneath his property and wonders if it has anything to do with his wife's host of ailments, ranging from stomach problems to fibromyalgia. He'd said he'd be happy to let the EPA test in his home.

Because the water in the area is not used for drinking, federal regulators have said it is unlikely residents could come in contact with the chemicals in it.

Residents have argued for years that the chemicals might be vaporizing and seeping back out into the neighborhood. The Air Force conducted soil vapor tests and concluded it's unlikely that vapors would be entering homes in dangerous levels. State regulators tested three structures in a different area of the plume and found no danger.

Lenny Siegel, director of the California-based Center for Public Environmental Oversight, has reviewed the government's soil vapor results and believes they show the potential for contaminating air in homes, particularly in the area that will be tested next month. In states like New York, California or Connecticut, the results would have triggered indoor air testing, he said.

"This is long overdue," said Siegel, who first visited Kelly in 2003 as part of the EPA's National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. "I've never claimed that I know for sure that Kelly is making these people sick. But given all the health problems that people have been reporting, they're owed actual sampling."