BILLINGS — A decades-old contamination problem beneath Billings is getting a closer look, with crews drilling at businesses and other properties to prepare to test for chemical vapors connected to a Superfund site that dates back more than 30 years.
Watch Billings EPA Superfund testing story here:
KTVQ is among the properties being tested for vapor intrusion of PCE and TCE, chemicals once used in dry cleaning.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had been doing some mitigation, digging 3,600 tons of dirt at the source of the contamination at 715 Central Avenue about two decades ago.
A chemical plume is still going out in a northeast direction and that is the reason for more testing in downtown Billings.
An EPA contractor drilled through the basement floor at KTVQ.
“It'll pull the gasses that accumulate under the building, very similar to radon,” said Roger Hoogerheide, EPA remedial project manager for the Billings PCE Superfund site.
Crews installed ports beneath buildings to test for PCE and TCE, chemicals linked to a former dry cleaning operation.
Hoogerheide says contaminated groundwater can carry those chemicals beneath buildings, where vapors can find a way inside.
“Through preferential pathways like cracks in the concrete, how the utility conduits are brought into a structure, or whether or not you have cracks on the walls, those gasses can accumulate,” Hoogerheide said.
Next week, the EPA plans to return with a Trace Atmospheric Gas Analyzer (TAGA) mobile laboratory to measure those vapors.
In June, the EPA announced it was installing mitigation systems, similar to those used for radon, in 400 homes.
Now, the EPA has identified 81 more buildings to test in an area stretching from Central Avenue near 7th Street West into downtown Billings.
The Moss Mansion is one of them.
“You can't change what's happened already, so right now all you can do is move forward and try and make sure that the community is safe,” said Aly Turner, Moss Mansion executive director. “And that's what they're doing by doing this testing.”
Next door to the site of the contamination, property manager Bryan Gentry says years of testing at his building have found the air safe.
“We've had several tests over the years that show we have a clean bill of health for as far as air quality inside the building from the EPA,” Gentry said.
But there still may be work to do at the original site, where the EPA says it is still detecting unsafe levels.
“I anticipate that we will probably issue a cleanup document, if not next year, then it will probably be in 2028,” Hoogerheide said.
For now, the EPA is trying to determine if more buildings will need mitigation.
