(The following story by Tracy Overstreet appeared on the Grand Island Independent website on April 21.)
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. — Union Pacific Railroad is looking for groundwater contamination northeast of Grand Island.
“Today was the first day of testing,” UP spokesman James Barnes said Monday. “Fourteen of an approximate 88 homes identified in the vicinity were tested.”
Specifically, the railroad is looking for the industrial solvent tetrachloroethylene, also known as perchloroethylene or PCE. It can cause kidney and liver damage and cancer at high levels.
The contamination was first found in 2004 at the site of the former Nebraska Solvents Co. at 1200 E. Highway 30.
The railroad owned the land when Nebraska Solvents apparently caused the contamination in the 1970s, railroad and state environmental officials said.
“The Union Pacific owned the property, but they didn’t cause the contamination,” said Laurie Brunner, a groundwater geologist for the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality.
Nebraska Solvents closed in 1975 and declared bankruptcy.
Union Pacific, as landowner, has taken over cleanup. It enrolled in a voluntary cleanup program with the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
DEQ spokesman Brian McManus said the testing is part of that cleanup effort in order to determine where exactly the contamination has migrated.
Testing this week is being conducted along the Hall/Merrick county line, between Fort Kearney Road and Capital Avenue, said Jeremy Collinson, environmental health supervisor at the Central District Health Department.
Barnes said the initial contamination at the Nebraska Solvents site was found in the range of 5 to 15 parts per billion (ppb). The threshold for drinking water is 5 ppb.
If homes in the testing area are found with contamination at a level higher than 5 ppb, Barnes said, bottled water will be provided.
Collinson said whole-house filtration systems may also be provided, if needed, at no cost to homeowners. He said this week’s test results should be back in about five to seven days.
Water samples are being taken from outside taps by a private testing lab, the Forrester Group. Testing is expected to continue for most of this week, Collinson said.