Defense contractor Raytheon says it plans to begin cleaning up a St. Petersburg, Florida neighborhood this fall in the face of up to a $400 million class action environmental lawsuit, angry neighbors, and demands of action by Gov. Charlie Crist and Sen. Bill Nelson.
Raython has been told to produce a cleanup plan to remove decades of toxic solvents and chemicals that have seeped into groundwater under about 1,000 modest to high priced waterfront homes of the Azalea Park neighborhood.
The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) confirmed that six more wells are contaminated with all or either of industrial chemicals - 1,4-dioxane,
trichlorethene (TCE), and vinyl chloride.
All are considered probable human carcinogens.
The volatile chemicals can cause serious health problems such as headaches, lung irritation, dizziness, nerve, kidney and liver damage, as well as cancers and death.
At last count, 19 irrigation wells in the Azalea neighborhood have been found to be contaminated with unsafe levels of industrial chemicals.
The wells are used to fill swimming pools and water lawns while drinking water is supplied off-site.
A toxic plume which originated from the Raytheon plant, located at 1501 72nd St. North in St. Petersburg, is growing and is at the edge of Azalea Elementary School and heading toward Boca Ciega Bay, an environmentally sensitive saltwater body.
The state says groundwater samples taken around the school found none of the toxins are on school ground.
The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has now given the company until the end of the month to submit a thorough assessment of the situation and a complete cleanup plan within 90 days.
Earlier this month separate lawsuits consolidated into one large class action that could eventually include 1,000 homes and $250 to $400 million in damages. A Tampa hearing in federal court this week set a trial for March 2011.
Joe Saunders, of Saunders & Walker P.A., St. Petersburg (and an IB member), filed the first case against Raytheon, a corporation based in Massachusetts, on behalf of Azalea residents Linda and John Swartout.
Saunders tells IB News that right now they are trying to assess the boundaries affected and the cost of the property in the contaminated area.
“This case is about two things,” he says. “The diminution of property value and we'll be asking for medical monitoring which might give us the basis for proving people are injured,” Saunders said.
Unlike a contaminant such as asbestos, which is the only cause of the lung disease mesothelomia, thus becoming a “signature” injury, epidemiologists will have to look at the Azalea neighborhood over time to determine if there are statistically significant higher rates of cancer, liver and kidney problems.
Dangers established by the EPA are based on exposure over decades, Saunders says, adding there is no safe level of TCE, which is more dangerous to breath than to drink.
The lawsuit alleges that the plaintiffs are exposed to airborne toxins in the neighborhood from the groundwater being sprayed into the air from the irrigation and sprinkler systems that draw water from private wells.
Raytheon also is alleged to have failed to warn, concealed, and covered-up the fact that toxic industrial chemicals were migrating from the plant into the adjacent neighborhood, the suit says.
Raytheon said in April in a statement to Fox News, that the company inherited the site and its analysis indicates there is no risk to public health.
The company says it takes its stewardship responsibilities seriously and “we are committed to completing this process in a thoughtful and thorough manner.”
Six law firms have joined in the class action lawsuit consolidated August 5th. Among those representing plaintiffs are Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., (nephew of President John F. Kennedy, son of Bobby Kennedy) along with attorney Mike Papantonio of Pensacola (an IB member). They cite the unjust enrichment of Raytheon by delaying cleanup since acquiring the property in 1996.
Papantonio told Fox Business in April that Raytheon’s shareholders are left with the hefty cleanup tab.
“The shareholders now who are holding that Raytheon stock are having to pay for all of those years Raytheon failed to do what they were supposed to do which was clean up. Now the shareholder holding onto that stock is looking at $250 to $400 million dollar bill. It’s no excuse for Raytheon saying they inherited this.”
Raytheon will begin pumping contaminated groundwater out of wells and into holding tanks where the water could be cleaned and ultimately shipped to a sewer plant.
The method, a “pump-and-treat” operation, is currently used by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at more than 500 Superfund sites. The process is a slow one and can take at least five years.
The Health Department says the wells do not pose a threat, but that doesn’t comfort distressed parents of children at Azalea Elementary School, especially the children who’ve attended it for the past 15 years.
Last month, state health officials gave the green light to watering lawns or filling swimming pools with irrigation water, and they announced that the state would begin testing the air inside the homes of neighbors in the Azalea neighborhood.
Any foundation cracks have the potential to allow fumes to seep into a home. Those results have not yet been tabulated.
Azalea neighbors writing into a St. Petersburg Times story that they are not about to swim in their pools or use their water. Tricia writes: “I’d like you to come to my house and eat a salad from my veggie garden that I water with my well! What kind of dressing would you like sir? Would you like to purchase my home?”
The pollution was discovered 17 years ago from a drum storage area when the site was used by a company called E-Systems.
In 1992, E-Systems hauled some contaminated soil away but two years later, an underground tank was found to contain toxic materials and that too, along with the surrounding soil had to be carted away.
Raytheon took over the site in 1995 and four years later assured the state that it had contained a “plume” of toxic chemicals and that natural dissipation means there was no imminent hazard for humans or the environment.
Six months later, the DEP met with Raytheon officials to discuss the off-site spreading contamination. While it moved under the neighborhood of Azalea Park, no one told the residents until April of this year. #