State plans to examine groundwater contamination at former Fidelity Street cleaners

Roll-offs with contaminated soil are due to depart Carrboro before the weekend. Photo by Kirk Ross

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

State officials say that soil removed from a former dry cleaners building on Fidelity Street will be on it’s way out of the area starting today (Thursday) and will likely be gone by Friday.

Contractors working for the state’s Dry-Cleaning Solvent Cleanup Act Program removed roughly 240 tons of soil from the site after testing required by the town as part of a permit to refurbish the building revealed contamination from perchloroethylene, or “perc,” a solvent used in the dry cleaning process. The chemical is consider hazardous and is linked to some cancers, but according to Al Chapman, a project manager for the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the public is not in danger from the soil.

Chapman said the 12 “roll-off” cars at the site loaded with soil from the recent $100,000 cleanup will be sent to a hazardous waste landfill in Michigan and that soil removed from the site that is not considered hazardous will be sent to a municipal landfill. He did not specify which facility it would go to, but said it would not be sent to the Orange County landfill.

The site at 127 Fidelity Street was home to Hangers Cleaners, which bills itself as using an environmentally friendly process. But a previous, conventional dry cleaning business is likely the source for the perchloroethylene.

Chapman said that the soil testing and removal was only one part of the process at the site. The next phase, which he said would start in 30 to 60 days, will involve groundwater tests. The site does have some groundwater contamination, Chapman said, but the extent of it and whether it has migrated off the site is unknown. It may take weeks after the tests are completed to know the nature of the groundwater contamination, he said.