The Poisoning of America

• Share

(7 of 11)

How was the mess created? Chemical Control Corp. had signed contracts with some of the state's chemical companies and factories to dispose of their wastes. The company was supposed to solidify nontoxic materials for safe burial in landfills and detoxify the poisonous chemicals for similar disposal. Instead, the corporation just stacked the drums out back. Reacting to the fears of Elizabeth residents, state officials seized the site in March 1978 and began the slow cleanup. The companies, whose barrels were clearly labeled, included the 3M Co. and Union Carbide; the firms had no legal obligation to retrieve their drums but promptly did so when notified by the state.

"We don't have any choice about cleaning this place up," says Jerry English, a lawyer who heads New Jersey's department of environmental protection. "We simply cannot allow a situation like this to continue." Wearing a white vinyl coverall over her fashionable suit, yellow plastic bootees over her high-heeled shoes, a respirator and protective gloves, English recently climbed on a rooftop and looked out over the sea of barrels. She broke into a wry laugh, grandly swept an arm toward the rubble and declared, "Some day, my son, this will all be yours."

SEYMOUR, IND.

A neat stone wall graces the entrance to Freeman Field Industrial Park in the otherwise rustic small town of Seymour (pop. 13,100), about 70 miles southeast of Indianapolis. But in the park, there is a dry, mud-caked ditch, and the trees along its banks are dead. Inside a wire fence, an acrid scent brings tears to visitors' eyes. Some of the tidily stacked barrels bear household names: General Electric, Dow Chemical, Shell Oil, Monsanto. Paint sludges collect in sticky red and green pools on the porous ground, and such chemicals as arsenic, benzene, toluene, trichloroethylene and naphthalene ooze from rusty barrels. Near by, two former dairy trucks, one still bearing the faded invitation DRINK REFRESHING MILK, contain dangerous chemical wastes.

Over a period of twelve years, some 60,000 drums of waste were heaped on this site by Seymour Recycling Corp., which, like Chemical Control Corp., contracted with its corporate clients to get rid of their wastes safely. After the company failed to comply with a state order to dispose of the chemicals, a court appointed a custodian: William Vance, an easygoing small-town lawyer and president of the Jackson County Bar Association. He inherited the mess in February. Says he: "Like most of the citizenry, I wasn't that concerned before—but I am now."

In March, hydrogen gas began rising from a shed on the property where 25 badly corroded drums of chlorosilane had been stored next to 100 bbl. of flammable solvents. Rain soaking the chlorosilane created a smoky chemical reaction. Fear of an explosion caused city officials to order the area vacated for several hours. Says Vance: "We had a 13-acre keg of dynamite." Firemen rushed to separate the drums. Now, Vance frets, "every time we have a thunderstorm I think, 'My God, don't let lightning hit out there!' "