Belleville Plans Legal Action Over Valley Contamination

Many of the residents and business owners of Roosevelt Avenue have their stories about their neighbor, the sprawling Walter Kidde property that fronts at 675 Main St.

(SEE OUR VIDEO OF TOM LOGUE, WHOSE MOTHER-IN-LAW RESIDES ON THE STREET.)  

One woman, who has lived on Roosevelt for all of her 91 years, used to work at the site when it was still churning out a popular brand of fire extinguisher. Another man recalls playing on the property as a boy in the 1970s. Business owners remembered a time a few years ago when a blast of stinking air wafted through the neighborhood while soil remediation work was being done at the site. The fumes, which one business owner said “smelled like rotten eggs”, were so powerful he almost passed out.

They also knew that while nothing has been made at the now-empty site in nearly 30 years, the residue of that previous manufacturing remained, in the form of chemicals that had seeped underground.

What the residents did not know until earlier this month, however, was that they may have been breathing in carcinogenic vapors seeping though fine cracks in the basements of their homes and businesses.

Township officials and outside experts met with about a dozen residents, merchants and other interested parties last night at Town Hall to announce that legal action is being taken to compel the owners of the site to carry out a nearly four-year-old plan to contain those vapors.

Township attorney Thomas Murphy said that litigation will be initiated today in Essex County's court.

“When they see this, they’ll know we’re serious,” Murphy told the crowd as he held up a legal filing, which was more than an inch thick.  

Murphy last night declined to identify the defendants in that action or to describe it in great detail. Also present last night was Christopher Stracco, an attorney with Day Pitney of Morristown, who will be representing Belleville in the matter. Stracco has since confirmed that  a lawsuit was filed today against Rt. 21 Associates, the property's owner, and other defendants. The suit was filed in Essex County Chancery Court.  

Another expert who spoke last night also placed the blame squarely with the owners of the property.

“There is a responsible party. It is Rt. 21 Associates. This is a matter of public record,” said Robert Zelley, a geologist with Maser Consulting of Clinton.

The path that led Belleville to court over the property was a long and winding one. Walter Kidde left town in 1983, part of a wave of de-industrialization that began sweeping the nation in the 1980s. That transition hit Belleville’s Valley section particularly hard -- the area, nestled against the Passaic River, was also once home to manufacturing facilities owned by iconic American brands like Westinghouse and Jergens. Those companies too have since ceased operations in Belleville.

Since then, other firms have eyed the site, including, in the early 2000s, the home-improvement chain Lowe’s and Wal-Mart. After years of back and forth, however, those deals eventually fell through.

Complicating any potential development of the site is the presence of carcinogenic compounds in the site’s groundwater.  Those compounds include a chemical known as TCE, or trichlorethylene, an industrial solvent used as a cleaning product for machinery. Even at low concentrations the substance can cause cancer.  Concentrations at the Kidde property groundwater are more than 10,000 times the so-called “remediation standard.”

The danger for Roosevelt Avenue residents -- and possibly others -- is not the groundwater itself, Zelley, the geologist, explained. Belleville’s water is piped in from a reservoir and is unaffected by the contamination.

Instead, it’s the vapors emanating from the water, towards the surface, that are the hazard. Gaseous TCE can snake its way through basements, uncovered sump pumps and through other outlets to ground level. In this sense, the gas behaves like radon, another, more well-known pollutant, Zelley said.

In May 2007, an environmental company hired by Rt. 21 Associates drew up a “vapor intrusion work plan” to address the issue.

About two years later, Rt. 21 Associates sought to have taxes for the site reduced because of the contamination conditions, the Belleville Health Department stated in a letter to affected residents. That prompted township officials to conduct their own investigation.

Zelley, whose firm was hired to assist in the investigation, learned that the vapor intrusion plan was never implemented, despite the fact that contaminated groundwater was known to have “migrated” from the site. One goal of the litigation is to compel Rt. 21 Associates to enact the plan immediately, officials acknowledged last night.

Another goal is to determine the full extent of the contamination. A map distributed last night depicts a “plume” of contaminated groundwater beneath properties on the north side of Roosevelt Avenue, but Zelley said that more testing needs to be done to determine just how far the contaminated water has spread.

Zelley did say, however, that it’s unlikely the contaminated water has traveled to School 9, a  block south from the site on Ralph Street. Belleville Board of Education president William Freda also attended last night’s meeting.

Instead, the contaminated groundwater probably has continued to spread downhill, east towards the Passaic River, Zelley said.

Property owners and their family members last night aired a number of concerns. One woman said that two of the six people in her home -- including herself -- had contracted cancer.

Colleen Britton, the director of the Department of Health, said she has prepared a fact sheet about the risks associated with TCE contamination. Zelley also advised people to avoid spending a lot of time in their basements, and to keep their basement windows closed, which was surprising advice to the attendees last night.

Lower pressure in the atmosphere helps the gas travel from below, Zelley later explained. Opening basement windows reduces atmospheric pressure, allowing the TCE to migrate upwards.

Tom Logue, whose mother-in-law, Anne Berto, is a resident of the street, asked about the impact the contamination would have on home values. Zelley did offer some good news regarding that issue: properties can be protected from exposure by caulking cracks and placing covers on sump pumps.

“It’s not doomsday. It’s very manageable,” Zelley said. “But you have to understand the problem to come up with a solution.”

Township officials, meanwhile, pledged action on several fronts. Councilman John Notari, who represents the area, said that he has directed the township manager, Victor Canning, to make himself readily available to property owners and residents. “Your call will go right through,” he said, also urging residents to contact him directly if they have concerns.

Canning said that residents should feel free to have their homes tested themselves, but he also said that if Rt. 21 Associates does not respond promptly enough, the township may step in to assist.  Federal money has also been sought to help pay for cleanup, Canning added. He did not say that these actions would be taken in lieu of litigation, however.  

Councilman-at-Large Mike Nicosia also said there is now a law establishing a deadline for such cleanups. Previously, there was no deadline, Nicosia said.