Union Bleachery contamination in Greenville, SC (Greenwood: lawyer, homes, neighborhood)

[jfergus4]

I grew up in the Union Bleachery community in Greenville, SC off of highway 253 and Old Buncombe Road. This area is home to the U.S. Finishing plant which caught fire in 2003 destroying nearly half of the plant and resulted in thousands of gallons of water containing unknown chemicals to flow onto the ground, into the air, and into Langston Creek which feeds directly into the Reedy River less than a mile from the plant. It was after this fire that the plant officially became abandoned and all cleanup efforts were aborted until 2012 when the US EPA added the U.S. Finishing Site known as Cone Mills to the US Superfund list. The Superfund program is a US EPA based program that cleans up the nations worst contaminated areas. The level of contamination and risk to the public and the environment must be very high in order for a site to be placed into the Superfund program.

I have read thousands of pages of EPA and SC DHEC reports regarding the site, the contaminants found, the levels of those contaminants, and the possible health implications. I am posting this because I am looking for individuals familiar with the area to give me feedback as to what they know about the contamination in this area and if they have had any types of health implications that they feel is because of contamination in the area. This area is highly contaminated from Air contamination, surface soil contamination, chemicals in the dust, groundwater, fish, contaminates in the two lakes, and in the rivers bordering the site. Some of the chemicals found at the site in the above mentioned mediums were Asbestos, Arsenic, Cyanide, Chromium, Lead, Mercury, PCBs, and numerous other chemicals.

I am looking for information from non-government sources regarding the history of this area and your personal experiences. I welcome anyone to ask questions of request more detail as to my knowledge of the sites history, documents I have in my possession, information about samples that have been taken at the site of the air, soil, and groundwater, etc. I appreciate and look forward to hearing from all of you about this area and answering any questions that you may have. This is a passion of mine and I would like to educate as many people as possible about this area.

[Carolina Knight]

Reedy River, north of Langston Creek, runs by several industries at Sulphur Springs Road. It is used mostly for warehouse and distribution. I think that would be minimal impact.

The Reedy River, from Langston Creek to its mouth in Lake Greenwood, may have carried chemicals downstream. This reason is why not many people are allowed into the river.

The site still has part of the structure remaining and the possibility of chemicals in the ground. The structure, a total loss, remains to be demolished completely. Cleanup of chemicals underground would take a few years.

The neighborhood has gentrification of residents, likely exposed to the mill's production for decades.

[bikeoid]

Originally Posted by Carolina Knight

The Reedy River, from Langston Creek to its mouth in Lake Greenwood, may have carried chemicals downstream. This reason is why not many people are allowed into the river.

I saw 2 kids swimming in the Reedy River below the falls today. Not just wading, but swimming, fully submerged at times.

[gsupstate]

Originally Posted by jfergus4

I grew up in the Union Bleachery community in Greenville, SC off of highway 253 and Old Buncombe Road. This area is home to the U.S. Finishing plant which caught fire in 2003 destroying nearly half of the plant and resulted in thousands of gallons of water containing unknown chemicals to flow onto the ground, into the air, and into Langston Creek which feeds directly into the Reedy River less than a mile from the plant. It was after this fire that the plant officially became abandoned and all cleanup efforts were aborted until 2012 when the US EPA added the U.S. Finishing Site known as Cone Mills to the US Superfund list. The Superfund program is a US EPA based program that cleans up the nations worst contaminated areas. The level of contamination and risk to the public and the environment must be very high in order for a site to be placed into the Superfund program.

I have read thousands of pages of EPA and SC DHEC reports regarding the site, the contaminants found, the levels of those contaminants, and the possible health implications. I am posting this because I am looking for individuals familiar with the area to give me feedback as to what they know about the contamination in this area and if they have had any types of health implications that they feel is because of contamination in the area. This area is highly contaminated from Air contamination, surface soil contamination, chemicals in the dust, groundwater, fish, contaminates in the two lakes, and in the rivers bordering the site. Some of the chemicals found at the site in the above mentioned mediums were Asbestos, Arsenic, Cyanide, Chromium, Lead, Mercury, PCBs, and numerous other chemicals.

I am looking for information from non-government sources regarding the history of this area and your personal experiences. I welcome anyone to ask questions of request more detail as to my knowledge of the sites history, documents I have in my possession, information about samples that have been taken at the site of the air, soil, and groundwater, etc. I appreciate and look forward to hearing from all of you about this area and answering any questions that you may have. This is a passion of mine and I would like to educate as many people as possible about this area.

Wow. That list of toxins and chemicals is quite lengthy. Sadly, Greenville has numerous areas like this, due to its textile past.

[NoodlesKnowles]

Originally Posted by bikeoid

I saw 2 kids swimming in the Reedy River below the falls today. Not just wading, but swimming, fully submerged at times.

there are signs posted that you should not swim/wade in the water and that it is not safe, although I see kids and adults in the water frequently down by the falls. Its pretty, but I wouldn't let my children get in it(If I had any, lol)

[jfergus4]

Below is a link to one of many large scale studies done by the EPA to address the contamination at the site. I will also give the official EPA website address for this so you can view all the documents. The contamination here is very bad. One of the "Areas of Concern" with the contamination is the Reedy River Floodplain Area where they actually now have the Swamp Rabbit Trail. Everything dumped their which was mainly polluted boiler coal ash would still be there on top of the soil blowing in the wind for people to breath in. A lot of the mill village was built on top of a landfill that the mill used and never lined. I do not understand why it has taken so long for the EPA to begin cleanup on this site. The other thing that bothers me is the EPA came in and removed the unstable area of the building but now they have taken their campers and machinery and left. They have no plans of finishing the job in the near future that I can find anywhere.

http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/docrec/pdoc1835.pdf

The link below is to the main EPA page for this site. It talks about the history and also about Duke Energy disposing of transformers containing PCBs into the lake with the full knowledge of the mill and the mill then knowingly gave fishing permits to people knowing the severe levels of contamination. The safety level for Chromium 6 in water is 50ppb anything above that is toxic. Levels of Chromium 6 at this site have been detected as high as 3,000,000ppb which is 60,000 times the limit considered safe.

Site Profile

A lot of samples have been taken in this area and are continuing to be taken however the neighborhood is not. My father is very sick. He has lived beside the mill all of his life and worked there so he has been in constant exposure. Does anyone know who I could contact to analyze a soil sample for me if I take one from his home, a dust sample from under the refrigerator, and things of that nature. If someone could give me a name and contact information I would appreciate that. Sometimes you have to do your own investigation. I know these chemicals are in the air, soil, and in the homes in this area because of the records and because the residents received a notice from a lawyer back in the 1980's telling them if they sold their homes in the future they must reveal the land it sits on is contaminated. Thank you for the feedback, help, and interest in this topic.

[jfergus4]

It has been a few months and now with the new year I wanted to check in and see if anyone had any comments or concerns based on the data and links I've submitted. I am trying to now get community risk questions together and I can help form these questions with the help of even non community residents. What I need is for anyone with some knowledge to post here or to private message me with some ideas of how this site, its chemicals found there, as well as the chemicals found via the exposure route and what you all think from your own perspectives would be a critical question to formulate from the community as a concern for the ATSDR to answer. Once I get these questions I will post the very long detailed letter that I am forwarding to ATSDR, which is a section of the CDC that deals with the chemical effects on the environment and human health. In response to this letter they should come out to the community, do testing and research to answer these questions and give a detailed site history and determine how bad the contamination is as well as how far it extends into the Reedy River into downtown Greenville. They will then come to a conclusion which is generally very in-depth and over 100 pages for most moderate to complex sites which will be posted on their website at which time I will post a link on here. Thank you all for your help and feedback thus far. Please help me get to the bottom of this hopefully once and forall. My family was raised there and now we are all sick and my mother and father still live there a they cannot afford to move and my father is very sick and now my mother is beginning the early stages of his lung problem. Thank you all and Happy New Year!