It's long been a mystery as to how high levels of dangerous trichloroethylene (TCE) were found in the Silva family's well on Sherland Avenue in the 1970s, but now there's a new explanation.
The Silva family had used the 465-foot deep well for farming the area and had been drinking from it since 1949 until they received notice that the well water was found to be toxic in 1982. The carcinogen TCE -- a solvent once heavily used by local silicon chip makers -- was found in the Silva's well at 14 times the level the state considers safe for drinking.
"I love water, because I know what the value of water is," a 77-year-old Joe Silva told a reporter in 1982. "It is my life savings. It is the way I make my living. I love that well as much as I love my wife and my family."
Sewer lines spreading TCE?
It was originally thought the well may have been contaminated by a leaking underground storage tank at the Intel semiconductor manufacturing plant at 365 Middlefield Road the leak was discovered in 1981. But the connection never proved true, and Environmental Protection Agency officials found that the 1.5-mile-long plume of TCE-contaminated ground water that Intel and others left behind fell short of the Silva's well by half a block. The plume -- now mostly cleaned up -- doesn't reach much farther west than Whisman Road.
