Site Near Tiogue Lake Chemically Tainted, EPA Says

By ZACHARY R. MIDER Journal Staff Writer

COVENTRY – A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study completed last month found a variety of pollutants in the soil of an Arnold Road property that was once used to refurbish metal drums.

Scientists digging test pits in the 27-acre parcel, at 592 Arnold Rd., last September found the buried remains of several drums, along with heavy metals, PCBs, pesticides and volatile organic compounds, the report states.

Currently home to the CAL Chemical Corp., the property is just across Arnold Road from the former municipal dump — which has also been identified as a possible source of pollution — and along the shore of Tiogue Lake.

It is unclear from the report what, if any, threat the pollution presents to the neighborhood or to ground water. The report states only that the EPA classified the site a danger to the ecosystem and a potential threat to drinking water supplies and to people who live nearby.

Jeffrey B. Hakanson, president of the Tiogue Lake Association, said his members are worried about pollution leaching into Tiffany Cove, on the south end of the lake. “Our concern is, OK, when it rains hard and south winds blow, is that stuff coming out of the cove, and how far is it going?” Hakanson said yesterday. “There is a whole list of chemicals that are above reference levels for EPA safe standards.”

Working through U.S. Rep. James R. Langevin’s office, the association has scheduled a meeting with EPA officials next week.

Beginning in 1961, a company called Farrel Barrel operated a drum- recycling facility at the site. From the mid-1970s to the 1980s, another company, Great Lakes Container Corp., took over the operation. Both companies cleaned out and refurbished metal drums for reuse. The companies routinely washed chemicals from the barrels into lagoons on the property, from which they could seep into the soil.

CAL Chemical, which employs about 12 people and makes detergents and other specialty chemicals for the textile industry, bought the property more than 20 years ago.

The Lamendola family, which owns CAL, was unaware of the site’s polluted past when it bought the property, said Richard Lamendola, a CAL official.

“We happened to buy a site which, unbeknownst to us, had been contaminated,” Lamendola said. “Now I’m stuck with it.”

The EPA is considering requiring CAL Chemical to clean up the pollution, though no final decision has been made, Lamendola said.

State environment officials have known about the pollution for decades, and have conducted studies there periodically, he said.

In 2002, an EPA study using ground-penetrating radar detected metal objects — suspected of being drums — underground. In the study last fall, contractors dug 12 test pits, finding old rims and other parts of rusted metal drums, as well as chemical residue.

“We’re really in the beginning stages of this whole process as far as determining how — and what’s the method — to proceed,” said Allen K. Jarrell, an EPA official who coordinated the study.

“We’re going to take whatever steps need to be taken to be sure that, number one, we’re protecting people’s health and cleaning up any environmental contamination,” said David Deegan, a spokesman for the EPA’s regional office, in Boston.

Deegan said the EPA would try to hold “responsible parties” accountable for the cost of any cleanup.

zmider@projo.com / (401) 277-8068