TIVERTON -- State environmental officials and New England Gas Co. appear to have moved closer on how to test North Tiverton soil for contamination, according to a response to the gas company's latest plans. But the state Department of Environmental Management still seeks several additional testing measures from the gas company.
Another response, from a consultant to the Bay Street area neighborhood, uses more strident language, asserting that the testing plan does not go far enough to delineate the potential full extent of contamination.
The DEM and other interested parties have drafted responses to each of the two plans -- for different properties in the neighborhood -- that the gas company's consultant, Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, submitted last month.
At issue is a neighborhood where people worry they are living on polluted ground. The parent company of New England Gas Co. a few years ago bought the former Fall River Gas Co., which was suspected of dumping manufactured plant waste decades ago in North Tiverton. Some residents of homes adjoining Bay Street in recent years have found blue-stained soil and other indicators of potential pollution.
Last year, the gas company undertook a soil study of the area -- but the DEM, after reviewing it, found need for more work, which led to the current testing proposals. One plan calls for testing 67 properties that were tested last year; the other plan includes some properties that denied the consultant permission to test last year and 16 more properties that would be tested for the first time.
Among several recommendations, the DEM's response asks the gas company to also test all soil samples for "semi-volatile" organic materials -- if the original samples taken last year showed any such material above federal levels.
The DEM further says that "all soil borings should be extended to the water table and/or the bottom of any fill observed." The DEM wants test pits to be between 4- and 8-feet deep, based on what is found in the field and on the water table for an area. The gas company's plans called for a shorter range of digging depths, some no more than 2 feet.
"If there is evidence of filling, the test pit should be extended to a depth below the fill," the DEM summary says.
Also, the DEM asks for a thorough review of the proposed sampling -- the depths, locations and methods -- to see whether the plans meets federal sampling guidelines. The DEM wants this done to be certain that testing data will adequately determine any risk to human health.
The DEM wants explanation as to why there are no tests for insecticides and herbicides -- an explanation as to why lack of such tests will not affect the human health risk assessment.
In other areas, however, the DEM says it "concurs" with the plans. For example, the DEM says it agrees with the gas company consultant's plan -- based on what is observed in the field -- to test for 13 "priority pollutant metals," as well as mercury, cyanide, petroleum hydrocarbons, and others, according to the Aug. 18 summary from Jeffrey Crawford, principal environmental scientist for the DEM's office of waste management.
The DEM also wants an inorganic metal called Vanadium added to the list of 13 pollutant metals for which the gas company's consultant recommended testing.
For the other properties, known as the Phase II site investigation plan, the DEM also "again requests" that the gas company include a Judson Street property that is held in the name of two trusts. "This request is based upon the understanding with [New England Gas Co.] that they would investigate any abutting property where contamination was detected including properties abutting the public roads and rights of way," says the DEM response to the phase II testing plan.
A New England Gas. Co. spokesman sounded positive about the response and the sense that things are moving forward.
"We are pleased with RIDEM's prompt and comprehensive response to out plan," said Christopher J. Medici, spokesman for New England Gas Co., in a statement. "We are anxious to begin the work and gain the information we need to further assess the situation."
Fuss and O'Neill, the consultant for the neighborhood, says in its response that residents represented by ENACT want several points incorporated into the plan.
A key concern is that the proposals do not see whether properties outside a current "study area" might have been affected. Fuss and O'Neill calls for comprehensive testing that would "include all areas" where waste or related contaminants may be.
"Other residents, not currently included in the previously identified 'study area,' " Fuss and O'Neill's response says, "may unknowingly be exposed to unacceptable concentrations of contaminants at their properties on a routine basis."
Fuss and O'Neill also recommends that the gas company be mindful of the Bay Street area as a place of predominately working-class, middle class residents. A town-imposed moratorium on digging and building has been in place, which, along with the "stigma" of suspected contamination, has negatively affected property values and the ability to sell, the Fuss and O'Neill response asserts.
"For these reasons, the protracted, iterative approach to investigation used and proposed by [New England Gas Co.] to date is highly problematic for residents," Fuss and O'Neill says. For that reason, the response says, a "comprehensive" approach to defining the extent of contamination is "imperative."
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