Click the play button on the video window to the right to see the story“Spend the money and get it out of the ground,” said Sean Hanstead. He works and lives with his family near a contamination site at 40th Street and Osborn Road.
“They should choose somewhere else, not where I live," Hanstead said. "But who makes that decision? I don't know.”
The legislature has the ultimate say. They allocate the money.
The
Department of Environmental Quality is supposed to receive $15 million a year to clean up the mess, but that only happened once in the last eight years.
This year that amount was cut by more than 40 percent.
Patrick Cunningham heads up the state’s Department of Environmental Quality.
He's testified in front of the legislature that he needs at least $9 million.
“Make sure we get enough to do the sites where public health is at risk,” Cunningham said. “Human health is first, eco-system is second.”
These are the sites the state considers less risky.
Contamination left behind by various dry cleaners all on Indian School Road -- one at 32nd Street, one at 38th Street and one at 40th Street.
Also contamination was left behind at 24th Street and the Grand Canal and another at 7th Avenue and Bethany Home Road.
Nancy Pierson lives in central Phoenix. Her backyard backs up to a site.
“This is something even in this hard economic times should not be put on the back burner," she said. "It's been lingering for years.”
The contamination is tetrachloroethene or PCE. According to the EPA, the chemical causes liver damage and cancer.
Toxic chemicals are also found in degreasers which are cleaners used on metals.
Those contamination sites on hold for clean up are in south Mesa, at West Grand Avenue near 33rd Avenue, and the North Canal Plume by 35th and Grand avenues.
And the Estes Landfill near Sky Harbor Airport has the longest list of deadly toxins -- also put on hold.
In all, there are 13 sites in the Valley that have been put on hold.
“It would be nice to know that it is completely decontaminated and cleaned up just for peace of mind,” said Pierson.
There are three other sites that are outside the Valley that have been put on hold. They are in Tucson, Payson and Klondyke.
For a complete look at each site, their maps and what the state says is contaminating it, click on the
Arizona Department of Environmental Quality’s website.
