The White Swan Laundry and Cleaners Site is an area of shallow groundwater contamination located in portions of Wall Township, Sea Girt Borough, and Manasquan Township in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The Site consists of a primarily residential neighborhood where tetrachloroethene (PCE) has been detected in sub-slab soil gas and indoor air samples collected from a number of the residential locations.
Two defunct dry cleaners, Sun Cleaners on Route 35 and White Swan Laundry and Cleaners, now owned by Bank of America, on Sea Girt Avenue, have been identified as potential sources of the PCE contamination.
In 1997, the Monmouth County Health Department (MCHD) was notified that private testing of several irrigation wells on Magnolia Avenue in Wall Township had shown the wells were contaminated with elevated levels of PCE. PCE is a volatile organic compound that is commonly used as a degreasing agent and dry cleaning solvent. Subsequently, sampling of other private irrigation wells in the area by MCHD indicated widespread PCE contamination in the shallow ground water, as well as lower levels of trichloroethylene (TCE), a decomposition product of PCE.
Between 1999 and 2000, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) and MCHD conducted a joint study to determine the extent of PCE and TCE in the ground water and evaluate the risk for contamination of Sea Girt's municipal supply wells. The study revealed that a plume of shallow ground water contamination approximately 2.5 miles long and a mile wide extended from Wall Township into Manasquan Township and Sea Girt Borough. Over one thousand homes are believed to be present over this plume.
EPA received a written request from NJDEP to evaluate the Site for removal action eligibility on December 4, 2001. EPA began a vapor intrusion investigation in December 2001, which led to the installation of nine sub-slab depressurization systems (SDS). NJDEP continued the vapor intrusion investigation and installed 20 additional SDS systems.
