KYOTO, July 12 (Kyodo) — Omron Corp. said Thursday it has detected toxic chemical compounds -- trichloroethylene and dioxin -- far exceeding environmental limits in the soil and groundwater at its closed facility in Kyoto, western Japan.
The level of trichloroethylene was 167 times the limit in the soil and 153 times in the groundwater, while the dioxin was 4.5 times the limit in the waste layer of the soil.
The Kyoto-based precision equipment maker said it has received no health damage reports from people living in the vicinity, and said it will work to clean up the 3,550-square-meter premises, which began operations in 1959 as a plant to produce control equipment.
The facility had been used for a number of other purposes since the 1990s, including a research institute, before it was closed last October, it said.
The detected trichloroethylene is thought to have leaked while it was used to clean electronic parts for several years around 1970. The dioxin is presumed to have come from incineration ash that was buried in the soil when a small incinerator was in operation up until the first half of the 1980s, according to Omron.