ENDICOTT — State policy-makers determining guidelines for acceptable human exposure to TCE didn't factor in studies that link the chemical with testicular cancer and lymphoma in animals, and other significant findings, according to a state Assembly report issued Thursday.

The result, according to advocates, is a lax policy that is blind to the consequences of trichloroethylene (TCE) exposure in places like Endicott, where elevated rates of testicular cancer have been documented in residents living in neighborhoods tainted by TCE and similar solvents.

The report also recommends policy-makers account for another important factor now lacking in their TCE policy — body weights and inhalation rates of children, who are most vulnerable to health risks from chemical vapors. The state's guideline of TCE exposure — 5 micrograms per cubic meter of air — would be hundreds of times lower if policy-makers took into account these factors and other information now available on risks from the chemical, according to the report. That other information includes studies cited in a 2001 assessment by the federal Environmental Protection Agency that found the chemical was much more toxic than previously believed.

Advocates, some of them visibly emotional, said recognition of the problem they have lived with for decades has been too slow in coming, and they fear policy-makers at the state Department of Health are likely to ignore new insights at the expense of public health.

"I can't believe how long this has taken," said Bruce Oldfield, a Hillcrest resident and member of Hillcrest Environmental Action Team. "This is unacceptable. We've gotten the brush-off too many times. "

The problem was first discovered in 2003 when scientists found TCE — long thought to be harmlessly trapped underground — was actually forming vapors and entering properties in Endicott. In October of that year, the DOH set a guideline that allowed up to 5 micrograms of TCE per cubic meter of air.

"We knew as a community that this was here," said Bernadette Patrick of Endicott, whose daughter, Nicole Brinsko, developed Hotchkin's disease when she was 17 after growing up in a neighborhood later found to be tainted by vapor intrusion. "We didn't need to be scientific. We lived it day by day. My daughter is evidence. This neighborhood is evidence. We saw it going door to door and with the phone calls."

The Assembly report, based on the testimony from scientists, policy-makers, advocates and industry representatives, was issued by the Assembly's Committee on Environmental Conservation. It is the latest in a growing body of information about risks from vapor intrusion, a process where solvents, like TCE, form vapors that move through the ground and enter buildings near polluted sites.

"This is a difficult issue with a lot of complexity, and the science is catching up to where it needs to be," said Assemblyman Thomas DiNapoli, D-Great Neck, chairman of the Assembly's Committee on Environmental Conservation. He presented the report with Assemblywoman Donna Lupardo, D-Endwell at an 11 a.m. press conference at Endicott village offices that drew about two dozen people.

Jeffrey Hammond, a spokesman for the Department of Health, said agency officials received the Assembly report Thursday and are assessing it, although he didn't offer a time frame. They will consider it with other responses critiquing the state's TCE guideline, including a review by a panel of independent scientists. That panel, called a peer review panel, also found scientific evidence that supported a much stricter TCE guideline.

Studies over the years have confirmed suspicions that inexplicably high pockets of cancers plague certain Broome County neighborhoods. But they have offered few clues as to why.

A cluster of childhood leukemia diagnosed in children in the Town of Union — including parts of Endicott — in the 1990s was not likely due to chance alone, according to a Department of Health study, which failed to find a cause. A similar cluster of cancers was documented in Hillcrest children in the late 1990s.

Vapor intrusion has since been discovered in parts of Hillcrest and the Town of Union, although state health officials say there are too many factors to determine whether it played a role.

Last year, the state documented elevated levels of low birth rates, kidney cancer and testicular cancer in Endicott neighborhoods affected by vapor intrusion. As with the juvenile cancers in Hillcrest and Town of Union cancers, the agency determined they were not merely a coincidence. They are working with officials from the federal Agency of Toxic Substance Disease Registry to design follow-up studies.

Some cleanups, including one overseen by the EPA in Hopewell Junction and one by CAE Electronics in Hillcrest, are already using more stringent standards than the state. If the state were to adopt a stricter guideline, it would mean more properties would qualify for pollution-blocking systems, similar to the kind that keeps radon out of basements.

"How much time can we give the Department of Health to respond?" Betty Havel, an Endicott trustee and member of Citizens Acting to Restore Endicott's Environment, asked rhetorically. "I'm at a point where I'm angry."

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