SIEMENS, STATE AGREE ON TAINTED SOIL

LAKE MARY — Siemens Information and Communications Networks Corp. has agreed to pay for a state investigation into contaminated groundwater under the company’s plant off Rinehart Road, officials said Wednesday.

The company also will pay for any cleanup of the contamination, though a spokesman said Siemens could try to get previous owners of the property to share the cost.

The spokesman for Siemens, which makes phone equipment, said the company is not to blame for the problem.

State officials say there is no threat to the public’s health.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has been investigating since various levels of a possible cancer-causing chemical called dichloroethene or a related chemical were found in eight private wells in Lake Mary and at Heathrow in late 2000 and early 2001.

In most of the wells, the levels of contamination were not considered dangerous, and some remain in use. But Siemens turned to bottled water after its water-supply well was found with an unsafe level of the chemicals.

The chemicals are chlorinated solvents that cut grease and are used in manufacturing.

Earlier this year, the state concluded that the source of the contamination was underneath the property owned by Siemens. Representatives of DEP and Siemens met Wednesday to discuss the situation.

There has been no threat to the area’s drinking-water supply, said DEP spokesman David Herbster.

“What we want to do is make sure the pollution doesn’t get any further,” Herbster said.

Siemens spokesman Bill Makley said the company never used those solvents at that site, and that the problem predates its acquisition in 1990 of Stromberg-Carlson, which occupied the property.

But, he said, the company has worked closely with the state to address the problem.

“We want to go above and beyond what’s required of us as corporate citizens,” he said.

Herbster said the investigation has cost tens of thousands of dollars, though he could not provide an exact figure. He also said he could not estimate what a cleanup would cost.

The next step, he said, is to try to determine the path the chemicals have taken by examining the geology under the property.

“What’s underground is still a mystery,” he said.