TIVERTON -- Four years after work crews found bright blue soil on Bay Street, residents frustrated with what they call a lack of progress are calling for an immediate cleanup by state agencies.

"In four years of dealing with this, everything is still the same," said citizens group leader Gail Corvello during a meeting to update residents on the cleanup effort last night.

Residents say Southern Union's recent agreement to sell its Rhode Island assets to National Grid PLC for $498 million -- and its continued denial of any liability for the toxins -- delays remediation and thus any peace of mind for the area's 250 residents.

Most recently, the Texas-based gas company has requested a dismissal of a fine the Department of Environmental Management filed last month against Southern Union for $1,000 a day, retroactive to January, for failing to submit plans to address the contaminated soil in North Tiverton.

The Jan. 4 retroactive date was when Southern Union was to have delivered three remediation plans to the DEM offices. To date, the company owes the state agency nearly $300,000, Corvello said.

After all the notices and appeals and legal posturing, residents have had enough, and are calling for the DEM to step in and clean up the area. The state agency can determine who's liable later, said Corvello, president of the Environmental Neighborhood Awareness Committee of Tiverton.

"If they want something to be done, they find a way," she said.

Southern Union is the parent company of New England Gas, which the DEM has identified as responsible for the dumping of toxic soil in over 50 acres of the residential neighborhood in North Tiverton.

The DEM has traced the contamination to waste from a process used to convert coal to gas at the former Fall River Gas Co. in the early 1900s. New England Gas acquired Fall River Gas in 2000.

Corvello says residents are still at risk since foul-smelling soil and water with an oily sheen was discovered in August 2002. Elevated levels of toxins such as cyanide, arsenic, and lead -- many of them known carcinogens -- have been identified in the area.

Corvello said her 23-year-old daughter recently found she has nine times the normal amount of mercury in her system.

"I don't know where it came from, but you know where my guess is," she said.

Other residents also expressed frustration at the agreement, which they say was made with no input from those directly affected by it. Town Council member Cecil Leonard said that the town has appealed that agreement, and expects to argue in Superior Court in a matter of weeks.

"We're saying the utility commission should not have approved it," he said.

Citizens group member Janice Carroll says the August agreement further distances Southern Union from the contamination. As a result of the pact, any lawsuit against Southern Union would have to be fought in Texas, she said.

Through the agreement, National Grid will put up as much as $13 million if the state is not able to collect from Southern Union after liability for the site has been determined.

Southern Union also agreed to investigate and remediate six known areas of contamination, but Corvell says the company is using its own consultants, whose standards in some case are far more lenient than those imposed by the state.

DEM's for example, allows only 150 parts per million of lead, while Southern Union's consultant, Environ, allows 1,500 parts per million.

Southern Union's soil testing will only cover 0.4 percent of the area, Corvello said.

"That's 0.4 percent. They want to address 0.4 percent of this neighborhood," she said.

Mike Healey, a spokesman for the attorney general's office, said the agreement, while not able to address everybody's concerns, is a beginning. If not for that agreement, there would be no discussion of a cleanup at all because the whole case would be in litigation, he said.

"[Attorney General Patrick Lynch] understands that they are frustrated beyond belief and he hopes that this agreement, which is a start, will soon show signs of real progress," through the subsequent soil cleanup, Healey said.

Meanwhile, Bruce Thompson says his life is at a standstill. A town-instituted moratorium on diggings, which was instituted due to the contamination, has left him unable to refinance or sell his property. Thompson, a Roger Williams University professor considering his retirement options, says he's left stuck.

"The lack of freedom at this point in my life really is very disturbing," he said.

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