Salt Lake City officials want to clean up groundwater tainted with a potentially carcinogenic cleaning solvent, but are unsure if they want to do it by having an area labeled a Superfund site.

Before complying with the Environmental Protection Agency's request for the underground contamination plume to be placed on the federal agency's Superfund list, city officials want more input from residents living in the area soiled by PCE (perchloroethylene).

"There could be a certain amount of stigma of being a Superfund site," Salt Lake City Councilman David Buhler said Thursday, two days after notifying, via letter, thousands of residents in the area. "But I don't want to rule that out."

A Superfund designation would free up federal funds to get a precise fix on the plume's location, as well as determine who is responsible for the pollution - and then tap the perpetrator for cleanup costs. Conversely, city officials worry that such a designation could negatively impact property values and public perceptions.

PCE traces were found, during 2004, in a culinary well near a reservoir at 500 South and 1500 East. City and state water experts say the solvent sample totaled two parts per billion, below the five parts per billion maximum allowed under federal law.

City officials point out that the well has been shut down since October 2004. No PCE - typically used in dry-cleaning operations or in combination with other solvents as a metal degreaser - has been found in the city's water supply.

"Bottom line: Salt Lake City's drinking water is safe," said Jeff Niermeyer, deputy director of the Salt Lake City Public Utilities Department. "But we want to be proactive in addressing this before it does become a problem."

Water-quality experts with the city, EPA and state Department of Environmental Quality also have treated a municipal irrigation well on the western edge of the Mount Olivet Cemetery for PCE contamination - first during the mid-1990s and again since 2003.

They have identified the nearby Veterans Affairs Medical Center as the likely source of the contamination plume, which generally is more than 100 feet deep and is thought to stretch from the area bounded by 500 South and Sunnyside Avenue (about 900 South), and the cemetery and the VA hospital.

VA Washington, D.C.-based spokesman Scott Hogenson acknowledged the Salt Lake City hospital did operate a dry-cleaning service from 1976 to 1980. But he noted that EPA tests have failed to uncover any PCE on VA property bordering the affected area.

"We've been working with them to investigate since 1996," Hogenson said. "We have every interest in seeing the source of contamination identified and addressed."

EPA coordinator Gwen Christiansen, who works out of the agency's Denver office, says investigators have ruled out any other source for the solvent. Before health experts realized the dangers of PCE, dry cleaners haphazardly disposed of the hazardous chemical.

"It was the accepted practice to throw it out on the ground, in a dumpster or discharge [the PCE] through a sewer line, where it could leach out," said Chad Gilgen, DEQ project manager for the site. "Up until about 1980, that was the accepted practice [concerning] PCE."

Gilgen said PCE is extremely volatile, and it quickly vaporizes when exposed to air. Half the 10-million-gallon reservoir fed by the tainted culinary well is above ground. When the well was in operation, state officials pointed out, its water was blended with, and diluted by, "hundreds-of-thousands" of gallons from other sources.

"My understanding of this . . . is that there is no danger from this to above-ground activity," said Buhler, adding the PCE is deep enough not to pose any danger as a gas dissipating on the surface.

But Robin Carbaugh, a resident who lives a block from from the irrigation well, is not persuaded. She worries gas might escape and get into buildings, such as nearby Carmen B. Pingree School for Children With Autism and Rowland Hall-St. Mark's School. "I have a question whether this is strictly a water-quality issue or a much broader issue," said Carbaugh.

Public meeting

* Federal, state and city leaders will take public input at a Jan. 11 meeting slated for 7 p.m. at Bonneville Elementary, 1145 S. 1900 East.