Seven years after NBC Bay Area's Investigative Unit uncovered how pervasive and fast that plume of toxic chemicals under Moffett Field was growing, the Environmental Protection Agency announced two companies will help pay to clean it up.
Some residents and a Google work space had to have special remedies to reduce the amount of toxic trichloroethylene, or TCE, in the air inside buildings around Moffet.
TCE was used early in Silicon Valley's history in the 1970s and 1980s as a solvent for etching silicon chips and was dumped into the environment where it still lingers to this day.
The Investigative Unit's reporting prompted California's Cancer Registry to conduct its own investigation, which found a higher than expected rate of certain cancers among residents in the area.
Federal EPA officials announced Monday that private companies, Phillips Semiconductors, Advanced Microdevices and Northrop Grumman Systems have agreed to spend some $4 million studying and helping to clean up the contamination.
View the Investigative Unit's previous coverage below:
- EPA Superfund Sites Cause New Toxic Plume Concerns
- Registry Finds High Cancer Numbers Around Moffett Field Superfund Site
- Moffett Field Toxic Plume Concerns
- Concern For Mountain View Toxic Plume Expanded
- Moffett Field Toxic Plume Subject of EPA Meeting with Mountain View Residents
- Are Sewers Source of Toxic Hot Spots in Mountain View?
- Toxic Plumes: The Dark Side of Silicon Valley
- The Chemical Legacy of Old Silicon Valley
