On Thanksgiving, tenants of the mercury-contaminated Lawn Terrace Apartments will complete their fifth week stranded in hotel rooms.

01:00 AM EST on Thursday, November 18, 2004

BY JOHN CASTELLUCCI
Journal Staff Writer

PAWTUCKET -- Alexandra Vasquez was planning to cook Thanksgiving dinner in her apartment for her two brothers, her niece and nephew, and her mother, who was flying in from the Dominican Republic.

Federico Bernon was looking forward to a home-cooked meal.

Tolani Smith was hoping to be back in her apartment with her 11-year-old daughter, Keaundra, and her 2-year-old son, Jaylen.

Last night, they all got some disappointing news.

Lawn Terrace Apartments -- the 60-unit complex at Pleasant and Division streets where Smith, Bernon and Vasquez lived until vandals contaminated it with mercury -- won't be cleaned up in time for Thanksgiving.

The 147 tenants evacuated from the apartment complex will have to spend at least another week, probably longer, in local hotels.

State and city officials broke the bad news to the tenants last night at a meeting in the Portuguese Social Club, the third such meeting since the apartment complex was evacuated Oct. 22.

Even before the official announcement, word had gotten around that the cleanup was going so slowly that tenants were probably not going to spend Thanksgiving at home.

"This is ruining our holidays. I'm worried we're not going to be in there for Christmas," Smith, a certified nursing assistant, said at the Comfort Inn on Tuesday evening. "How are my kids going to have Christmas in this hotel?"

It has been more than a month since Smith and other tenants evacuated from the apartment complex were put up at the Comfort Inn, a 138-room hotel on George Street that overlooks Route 95.

Bernon, 62, said it was all right at first. The rooms are free, and tenants are given food vouchers enabling them to take meals from the Ground Round, the restaurant attached to the hotel.

But lately the experience has started to pall. The restaurant menu is strictly American, and Bernon, who came to this country from Panama, has begun to miss the rice with coconut he cooks for himself and his girlfriend in their apartment.

Vasquez, who was planning a traditional American Thanksgiving dinner -- turkey with all the trimmings, stuffed potatoes with sour cream, baked ham with pineapple -- nevertheless hankers for the cuisine of the Dominican Republic. "I need my rice and beans, my rice and coconut," she said.

Even Smith, who was born and raised in this country, finds the unvarying diet unappetizing. "It's very American, and it feels like you're eating the same thing all the time."

MERCURY IS a toxic metal that's liquid at room temperature. Health officials say even small amounts can be hazardous, especially to children and pregnant women.

Blood tests showed that 10 of the 171 people exposed to the stolen mercury had detectable levels. Though elevated, the mercury levels weren't considered high enough to make anybody sick.

The mercury that contaminated Lawn Terrace Apartments was being stored in a shed belonging to New England Gas Co. at the so-called Tidewater property, the site of a former coal-gasification plant that lies a short city block from the apartment complex.

The vandals who broke in and stole it told Pawtucket detectives that they spilled a jar containing about 10 pounds of mercury in and around the storage shed, and took another, 32-ounce jar to the apartment complex.

Pawtucket Detective Maj. John J. Whiting said the vandals -- two 17-year-old boys, an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old -- apparently didn't realize how dangerous the stuff was. They tracked it into their apartments, spread it around the apartment complex, even threw it on cars.

The complex is undergoing an extensive cleanup. Three companies hired by New England Gas are working around the clock.

The cleanup is being monitored by the Department of Environmental Management and the federal Environmental Protection Agency. Michael Mulhare, who heads the DEM's emergency-response team, said the entire parking lot and all the asphalt-paved walkways of the five-building development have been torn up so that topsoil can be removed to a depth of 4 to 6 inches.

Mulhare said the decision to remove the topsoil was made "in an excess of caution" after soil contamination was found in several areas of the apartment complex, because no one knows for certain where the mercury was spread.

Neither Mulhare nor any other official contacted yesterday had any idea how much longer the cleanup will take.

Mulhare said the process involves testing and retesting the buildings contaminated with mercury until they test negative. In the case of one building -- 196 Pleasant St., where the 18-year-old vandal lived with his parents -- the interior has continued to test positive, Mulhare said, even as cleanup crews have removed floor tiles, stair treads and rugs.

NEW ENGLAND Gas is paying for the families to stay in 50 rooms at the Comfort Inn. This weekend, the people in more than half of those rooms will go temporarily to the Fairfield Inn in Warwick, because their rooms were booked far in advance by a group attending a convention in Providence.

"We're trying to keep as many people as possible," said Comfort Inn manager Richard T. Murphy. "We know it's difficult for them. It's an unfortunate situation, but we're working through it."

Several tenants said they will travel to visit family on Thanksgiving. Patrick Rowe, 33, a factory worker, will be go to Tupelo, Miss., with his wife for the holiday. His mother, Pauline, 60, will cook dinner.

Gas company executives said last night that arrangements will be made to provide Thanksgiving dinner for tenants who are stuck at the hotel.

Smith, who works at Miriam Hospital, in Providence, said the hotel stay has been particularly tough on her children. Keaundra misses her privacy; Jaylen misses his Barney videos. It costs $10 to watch a movie in the room.

"There's really nothing for the kids to do," Smith said. "And then I hear that the hotel is complaining about our kids, the noise they make. They're kids. What can they do?"

Smith said she drives past the apartment complex every now and then, and, when she does, Jaylen starts crying.

"He says, 'I want to go home.' "