Environmental researcher says Brockovich community meeting meant to tie up loose ends

There are three open issues Bob Bowcock wants to discuss with the Le Roy community next Wednesday, and none of the topics will involve high school girls with tics, except to say, he and his team found no environmental cause of the tics.

Bowcock, head of Integrated Resource Management, based in Claremont, Calif., was hired by environmental activist Erin Brockovich to investigate possible environmental causes for the tic outbreak in Le Roy about 10 months ago.

"We're not going to come out with a smoking gun and say, 'this is what caused it,' " Bowcock said.

If anything, he hopes to calm matters down, he said.

Bowcock will be with Brockovich at the American Legion Hall on Wednesday.

He said he felt an obligation to come back to the community to discuss what environmental and regulatory issues he and his team did uncover.

First, there is the four-mile-long, mile-wide TCE plume emanating from the Lehigh Valley Train Derailment Site on Gulf Road. While the federal Environmental Protection Agency acted quickly after all the recent attention was drawn to rusting barrels at the remediation site, he said there is no evidence the EPA is doing anything further to deal with the plume.

One of the issues the IRM team researched was whether there has been a greater number of cancer patients in Limerock and Caledonia. 

"We found two micrograms per litre of TCE in surface water in winter, and that’s bad, that's just bad," Bowcock said. "If we draw attention to that and the EPA steps it up, great, victory."

There was a study completed by the state in 2001 which showed in that ZIP code there were a couple of more lung cancer patients and a couple fewer prostrate cancer patients per capita.

The differences, Bowcock said, were insignificant.

The second issue is MTBE (a now-banned gasoline additive) found in three residential wells on Harris Road.

Bowcock said he wants to draw attention to that issue in the hopes it will lead to the municipal water line being extended to Harris Road.

Bowcock said the source for the MTBE has not been identified.

The third issue was brought out in the testing and report completed by Leader Professional Services. In June, the school district released the report from Leader saying the stack on the school's boiler system needed to be taller.

Bowcock said he will discuss any community concerns over that issue, but said the school district has shown quite a bit of cooperation with the community since February and school officials have done everything they said they were going to do.

There are three constituencies asking Brockovich and Bowcock to release information on these issues, with some home owners emailing weekly -- the people in the Limerock and Caledonia area, the residents of Harris Road, and environmental groups that have been monitoring the situation in Le Roy.

The meeting, Bowcock said, is meant to provide concerned citizens with information. While not excluding the media, no press release went out notifying the media of the meeting because he is not trying to stir up any controversy or alarm in Le Roy.

"If anything I hope to dispel all of these community issues that are still out there," Bowcock said.

The timing of the visit coincides with Brockovich and Bowcock conducting an unrelated environmental community meeting in Watertown on Thursday.

PHOTO: File Photo of Bob Bowcock