A half-hour presentation Tuesday about the cleanup of soil and groundwater tetrachloroethylene (PCE) contamination caused by a former commercial dry cleaner in town left concerned residents with plenty of questions.

Following the presentation by Ellen Ivens, an environmental scientist from the firm hired to conduct the Topps site cleanup, audience members laid on the questions and concerns for well over an hour.

Below is a compilation of pertinent questions asked by residents and the answers provided by Ivens and New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection representatives Atwood Davis and Heather Swartz:

Q1. If I live in the Classification Exception Area, how do I know if my water is safe to use?

A1. There are no private drinking water wells in the PCE-contaminated area. All of the water being used in Fair Lawn in your homes or in your gardens every day is treated and supplied by the borough and comes from the borough's water supply.

Q2. So then what is the Classification Exception Area and what does it mean for me?

A2. It’s a geographically defined area where some of the environmental standards, in this case the standards for PCE, have been exceeded. As the PCE plume shrinks over time, the CEA will be adjusted, likely every two years. So if you're on the outskirts of the CEA now, in a few years you may no longer live within the CEA (i.e. the contaminated zone).

If you live inside the CEA, all that really means is that you shouldn’t put a well in your own backyard and use that water. Since everybody in Fair Lawn is already using municipal water that is supplied by the town, there's no reason to have a private well in your backyard in the first place.

Q3. Where can I get access to all the data and reports that have been accumulated about the Topps site?

A3. Anderson Mulholland & Associates have made all of their reports -- except for vapor intrusion reports -- available in the reference section of the Fair Lawn library. They've included ground water reports, monitoring reports, information on the interim remedial measure taken to remove the PCE-source and the 2007 health assessment from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, among others. Going forward, all future semi-annual progress reports will also be filed in the library reference section as well.

Q4. What about vapor intrusion reports? Why aren't those in the library?

A4. A decision was made not to put the vapor intrusion reports in the library to protect the privacy of people whose homes are included in the report. If you'd like to get your hands on the vapor intrusion reports, you still can, but you will have to file an Open Public Records request with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.

Q5. Have any studies been done to determine the risk of developing cancer from the long-term exposure that residents living in the affected area have suffered?

A5. The New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services performed a health consultation looking at the cancer risk of being exposed to the highest level of contamination found at the Topps site for 350 days per year for 70 years. This consultation found that the risk of getting cancer from this sort of prolonged exposure to contaminants from the Topps site is no greater than the ambient risk of living in an urban environment.

Q6. Has anyone monitored whether there has been an uptick in the number of cancer cases specifically in the contaminated area in Fair Lawn?

A6. No monitoring of this sort has been performed.

Q7. If I live in the contaminated area, how much of this information do I need to disclose if I'm trying to sell my home?

A7. A few years ago some new real estate laws went into effect that were very comprehensive about what you have to disclose when you’re selling a home. If you have a well in front of your house that would fall under the real estate disclosure laws. If you’re in a vapor intrusion zone, you’d have to disclose that. If you’re in the ground water plume, you’d have to disclose that to prospective buyers. For more specifics on what you do and don't have to disclose, contact Heather Swartz at the NJDEP, at (609)-984-7135 or heather.swartz@dep.state.nj.us

Q8. So are you telling me I won't be able to sell my home for 40 years (until all of the contamination has been mitigated) if I live in the area?

A8. The contamination effects have not stopped owners from being able to sell their homes. According to the environmental consultant, homes in the area have been selling, including those with mitigation systems. One resident who lives in the affected area said that on her block alone, four homes had sold at fair market value with full disclosure in the last two years.

Q9. Instead of just waiting 40 years for nature to take its course, isn't there something more that can be done to mitigate the problem in a more rapid fashion?

A9. There are many alternative active remediation technologies for soils. However, the contaminated soil -- which was found at the Topps site itself -- has already been addressed.

The contamination problem now lies with the ground water. But none of the technologies available for remediating ground water have been proven to be as effective as the monitored natural attenuation that has been proposed at the Topps site.

Q10. Given that Topps Dry Cleaners had been around since 1950, why wasn't this contamination problem caught sooner? 

A10. One reason is that the science of vapor intrusion wasn't well understood until the late 1990s or early 2000s. Prior to that, measurements of vapor intrusion weren't even taken at sites.

While Topps was known to the NJDEP to be a site where groundwater contamination had taken place, it wasn't considered a priority because, as was discussed previously, no one was drinking the groundwater from the site.

Once vapor intrusion became better understood and vapor intrusion effects were being seen in homes, it became a higher priority to investigate the Topps site.

Q11. What are the symptoms of exposure to vapor intrusion?

A11. Short term exposure to high levels of organic vapors can cause eye and respiratory irritation, headache and/or nausea. Breathing low levels of organic vapors over a long period of time may increase an individual's risk for respiratory ailments, cancer and other health problems.