Vinyl Chloride Dangers - Read Our Letter To The Editor

Vinyl Chloride

Vinyl chloride is a nasty chemical. As far back as 1974, it was declared a known carcinogen and linked to a rare form of liver cancer, as well as liver, nervous system, and skin disorders. Today, it can be found in air vapor and water samples from the Jones Road Ground Water Plume Superfund Site. However, vinyl chloride was not one of the original chemicals that Bell Dry Cleaners dumped behind its store two decades ago, which created the Superfund site.

How did it get there?  Vinyl chloride is a good example of the threat that chemical byproducts pose in the environment. One of the chemicals that was dumped at the site is tetrachloroethylene, or PERC.  Once it enters the environment, PERC can break down into trichloroethylene and then, ultimately, to vinyl chloride. While PERC is hazardous to humans, once it becomes vinyl chloride, it presents a threat in smaller amounts.  The EPA threshold for PERC in water is five parts per billion. The limit for Vinyl Chloride is just two parts per billion.  To put it into perspective, the entire population of North and South America is one billion people.  If only two of those people were named “Vinyl Chloride” that would be too many. 

So, when we saw a news story in the Houston Chronicle saying the EPA was considering doing a risk assessment of vinyl chloride, we wrote this letter to the editor.