ATSDR MEDIA ANNOUNCEMENT

ATSDR Releases Final Health Consultation for Chillum Perc Site
Site Poses No Apparent Public Health Hazard

Media Announcement
For Immediate Release: December 17, 2004

ATLANTA - The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) today released the final version of a public health consultation concerning a gasoline and perchloroethylene (perc or PCE) plume in the soil at Chillum, Prince George's County, Md. The nearest residents to this contamination live in the Lamond Riggs Park neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

The gasoline plume originated at a service station in the Chillum section of Hyattsville, Md., and migrated into the Lamond-Riggs Park neighborhood. Federal and state agencies have investigated the source of the perc plume since 1990.

ATSDR reviewed sampling data for indoor air, soil vapor, groundwater and drinking water collected from the site from July 2003 to September 2003 at the request of the Environmental Protection Agency Region III. This health consultation analyzes the data and determines whether the on-site contamination poses a public health hazard through an inhalation pathway.

The evaluation produced four major findings:
1. Levels of all indoor air volatile organic compound (VOC) concentrations detected at the site are unlikely to cause adverse health effects for short, mid-length and long, repeated exposures.
2. Assessing the cancer risk suggests that residents who have a continuous lifetime exposure to reported levels might have a slight hypothetical increase in the risk of developing cancer. Nevertheless, because conservative assumptions are used for risk evaluation and because of the small population of the community, any noticeable increase in the number of cancer cases in the community is unlikely.
3. The limited available data indicated soil vapor moving into homes is either not occurring or occurring at a low rate that poses no adverse health risk to the community.
4. The detected VOCs in drinking water are trihalomethanes (THMs). Exposures to THMs in drinking water are not expected to result in adverse health effects in the community and are below the maximum contaminant level (MCL).

ATSDR categorizes this site as no apparent public health hazard. This means human exposure to contaminated indoor air could be occurring, could have occurred in the past, or could occur in the future. It is not expected to cause any adverse health effects. The primary route of human exposure is inhalation of potentially contaminated indoor air from plume vapor.

ATSDR made recommendations to verify VOC concentrations at one house, and to restrict future activities that may disrupt the contaminated areas below the surface soil (that is, basement or utility excavations in the areas of known subsurface contamination).

ATSDR will help, as needed, in evaluations of additional environmental data to better characterize the exposure and the extent of the vapor problem. The agency will continue to work with EPA, the District of Columbia Department of Health and the Maryland Department of the Environment to respond to public health questions and concerns.

The health consultation will be available for review at the Lamond-Riggs Library, 5401 S. Dakota Ave., S.E., Washington, D.C. 20011.

For more information, community members can contact Regional Representative Lora Siegmann Werner at 215-814-3141, Health Assessor Jane Zhu or Community Involvement Specialist LaFreta Dalton, toll-free, at 1-888-422-8737. Callers should refer to the Chillum site in Chillum, Md.

ATSDR, a federal public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, evaluates the human health effects of exposure to hazardous substances.

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Members of the news media can request an interview with ATSDR staff by calling the ATSDR Office of Communication at 770-488-0700.