Far below the rural hideaways in Hereford Township, Berks County lurks a dangerous toxin.

"TCE, trichloroethylene, is a contaminant," said Roy Schrock, remedial project manager for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

TCE is also a suspected carcinogen left over from the now extinct Bally Case and Cooler company from a time when environmental laws were nearly non-existent.

Barrels of the industrial degreaser were brought to the Crossley farm in the late 1960s, stored, then dumped.

"Those liquids migrated down into the bedrock," Schrock explained.  "And TCE is now trapped in the fractured bedrock where the water flows over it."

Schrock estimated there's a three mile plume where the ground water has way more TCE than the acceptable five parts per billion.

"The hot spot area is 900,000 parts per billion," said Schrock.

That's not news for Schrock, who's been assigned to the site since 1994.

Homes affected along Dale Road were given new wells and filter systems that made the water drinkable, and in turn, pushed remediation efforts lower on the federal priority list.

In 2009, $11 million in federal funds fell into place, designs were issued, and this summer, construction for a water treatment plant is in full swing.

"It's a very big job," Schrock said.

Along Dale Road, crews will lay 6,000 feet of pipe, up to 120 feet a day.

On the Crossley Farm site, work will continue through the winter to build a permanent water treatment plant slated to start pumping in the spring.

The pipes crews are laying now will work with extraction wells already in place.  Once everything's up and running, the system will pump the water to the treatment plant, remove the toxins and then the clean water will be piped into a discharge area.

"I'm only tackling the highest concentration area, trying to cut it off," Schrock said.

It could take up to a year after the system's in full swing to see how well it works.  That will determine how long until the affected region is free of TCE.

Click here for more information on the project.