The nuts and bolts of toxins...
The groundwater and soil at Gas Works Park, are contaminated with polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or "PAHs." They are the principal contaminants of concern, but other volatile organic compounds also identified as a potential threat to public health--benzene escapes from the ground into the air on an ongoing basis. Benzene gas and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are carcinogenic substances.
PAHs are a group of chemicals that are formed during the incomplete burning of coal, oil, gas, wood, garbage, or other organic substances, such as tobacco and charbroiled meat. There are more than 100 different PAHs.
PAHs generally occur as complex mixtures (for example, as part of combustion products such as soot), not as single compounds.
PAHs usually occur naturally, but they can be manufactured as individual compounds for research purposes; however, not as the mixtures found in combustion products. As pure chemicals, PAHs generally exist as colorless, white, or pale yellow-green solids. They can have a faint, pleasant odor.
A few PAHs are used in medicines and to make dyes, plastics, and pesticides. Others are contained in asphalt used in road construction. They can also be found in substances such as crude oil, coal, coal tar pitch, creosote, and roofing tar. They are found throughout the environment in the air, water, and soil. They can occur in the air, either attached to dust particles or as solids in soil or sediment.
If you are exposed to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, many factors will determine whether harmful health effects will occur and what the type and severity of those health effects will be. These factors include the dose, the duration, the pathway by which you are exposed (breathing, eating, drinking, or skin contact), the other chemicals to which you are exposed, and your individual characteristics such as age, gender, nutritional status, family traits, lifestyle, and state of health.