RACINE - The bad news from a community garden site that grew vegetables for the Racine County Food Bank is that a cancer-causing chemical has moved into shallow soil there.

The good news is that testing ruled out any carcinogens in vegetables harvested there.

Recent tests of soil samples found that perchloroethylene, or "perc," has moved into shallow soil in some parts of the gardens just northeast of 3 Mile Road and North Main Street. SC Johnson owns the land which volunteers, including master gardeners, cultivated.

Last year they grew 9,000 pounds of produce there.

The story began last month when the Ehrlich partnership, which owns a small strip center on North Main Street near 3 Mile Road, had a buyer for the property.

The center includes a long-time dry cleaning business at 3941 N. Main St. That meant testing for contaminants was required, and perc was discovered on the property. The current business, Express Cleaners, is not considered the polluter.

The next question was whether the carcinogen had moved into the adjacent 145-by-125-foot garden area, and the answer turns out to be yes.

Skip Glor, an environmental scientist working on the case, said "very low" concentrations of perc and its breakdown products were detected in eight of the nine samples taken. It was found in all seven samples taken nearest the dry cleaner's back door and in the northwest corner of the gardens.

"That's troublesome to all of us," he said. "It demonstrates that we have contamination on the east side. So how much farther does it go, south and east?"

Harvesting on site was halted immediately when the possibility of contamination arose.

But Glor said perc would not have been picked up by plants - this year or previously. "Unequivocally no," said Glor, who is advising the Ehrlich partnership's law firm.

But results from the site itself ensure that there will be no more harvesting this year, at the least.

Another concern is perc in the shallow groundwater. "Definitely, we worry about it getting into groundwater," Glor said.

Mark Drews, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources project manager for this case, said monitoring wells will be installed and more soil samples taken.

"Then, based on the concentrations, we'll have to decide how to take care of it," Drew said. To use the area again for gardens, he said, the soil would have be removed, more testing performed, and the soil replaced.

SCJ spokeswoman Kelly Semrau said it was too early to say what the remedy will be or whether the site will be used for gardens again.

But if that was the goal, Drews said it would fairly easily to accomplish by next year's growing season.

The work to date has cost the Ehrlich partnership about $34,000. Glor said the owners will be eligible for some reimbursement from a state fund set up for dry cleaning contamination.