The following pages describe how toxic vapors can enter your living space from the subsurface
The following pages describe various methods to prevent toxic vapors entering your living space from the subsurface
The following pages describe basic groundwater flow
The following pages describe basic contaminant transport by groundwater
The following page describes how products like gasoline sink below water when it normally floats
The following page illustrates the importance that contaminated soils are often composed of three different populations
The following page illustrates the mechanism for chemicals as a separate phase to directly, not dissolved in water, contaminate soils
The following page illustrates the mechanism for chemicals, dissolved in water, to contaminate soils
The following page provides definitions of terms used on this website
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This page is an in depth overview describing the objectives of this website
It is probably best to first explore the other links; however, the Table of Contents page is a must see: many more pages are available than the few hyperlinks displayed in this column
This page provides some useful links to interesting sites on the web
earthdr@earthdrx.org

earthDr!

"the environmental ombudsman"

Environmental Justice for All

earthDRx.org - prescriptions (Rx) for
a cleaner environment
PROTECTING YOUR HOME ENVIRONMENT FROM THE ENTRY OF SURFACE AND SUBSURFACE CONTAMINATION

  • This web site is targeted to explaining the mechanisms for migration of contaminants such as benzene, toluene, xylene, MTBE, TCE, arsenic, chromate, mercury, lead, dioxin, PCBs, fuel oil, gasoline or other toxic chemicals that enter your home; and, methods to prevent entry of contaminants.
  • Don't assume that groundwater contamination is only a threat to the drinking water supplied from your well. Groundwater contamination can also cause vapor or dust problems in your home. Therefore, it is especially important to protect against ground-water contamination in a densely populated area.
  • A prime example of ENVIRONMENTAL INJUSTICE: writing off groundwater contamination in a densely populated area because it is not an aquifer-use area without first ensuring that there is not a vapor or dust exposure route into living areas.
  • Sources of subsurface contamination entering a home come either through the basement wall/crawl space/slab or through well water supplying the home.
  • This web site is not targeted to exploring cause and effect relationships pertaining to possible health effects from exposure to contaminants entering your home and the development of such maladies as cancer, autism, diabetes, or lupus. However, this web site will help you to identify potential exposure pathways to you and your family from which you may be able to build a cause and effect relationship.
  • Our home environment has become one grand experiment that daily introduces us to many contaminants with which we have limited or zero knowledge of either short or long term health effects.
  • This web site is intended to provide you with a structured educational program and also, a topics page where you can seek answers to all pertinent questions concerning curtailing exposure pathways into your home from contamination in the subsurface environment and secondarily from contaminated surface soils.
  • My hope is to provide you with a logical approach to frame the proper questions, in order, to get the correct answers from regulatory agencies and subsurface professionals to protect your home environs from entry of contamination.
  • The structured educational program follows a dual track or sometimes a multi-track approach. Actual examples of environmental exposures and remedies may need to be supplemented by another track that provides a detailed explanation of the physical or chemical mechanisms controlling the exposure pathways illustrated by the examples.
  • On this website, there are numerous presentations of, as yet, unpublished subsurface phenomena. These may be used as research starting points.

TREATISE - VAPOR GENESIS IN STRUCTURES
   
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