MILWAUKEE — Monday marked the third day people living in a Milwaukee apartment complex have been forced away from their homes because of an evacuation order from the Milwaukee Health Department.
This came due to an extremely high level of a dangerous chemical found in the building. The chemical is called trichloroethylene or TCE.
"It is an industrial solvent. It's used for degreasing in many different industries from aerospace to electronics to just about anything metal,” said Weihsueh Chiu, a scientist and professor at Texas A&M.
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Previously, Chiu spent about 15 years at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) studying the health effects of environmental chemicals, specifically TCE. He says before there were regulations, the chemical was often dumped in the soil and water, but over time it doesn't stay there.
“It wasn't just stuck in the groundwater. It could also essentially turn back into a gas, and then come up into buildings where it could accumulate similar to Radon,” said Chiu.
He believes that could have happened at the Community within the Corridor building. The apartment complex’s website says it used to be the Briggs & Stratton industrial complex.
The health department says the amount of Vapor Intrusion Levels found at the building were “exceptionally high,” measuring 400 micrograms per meter cubed.
"That's about 200 times the level that you know would be considered safe for lifetime exposure,” said Chiu.
Chiu says short-term exposure causes the most risk for pregnant women. TCE can cause birth defects. He says long-term exposure, which can sometimes mean decades of exposure, can cause issues with the central nervous system, liver, kidneys, reproductive systems, and immune systems and can increase a person's risk for cancer.
"For the EPA to declare something is safe, it means that it should be less than one million extra cancer risks, for at that sort of the level it's adequate,” said Chiu. "So it is more like the one in a few per 1,000 of cancer rates, which is not acceptable for the general population."
For people who have been exposed to the chemical, Chiu says to monitor their health. He also says clean up of TCE can happen quickly if the source is the groundwater or soil. He says installing a ventilation system, like you would if you had Radon in the basement of your house, can correct the problem.
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