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April 23, 2008

Update: Settlement in Tiverton soil contamination suit

TIVERTON -- On the eve of a federal trial, lawyers have reached a potential settlement of the most complicated and extensive soil contamination case in Rhode Island.

About 100 homeowners have sought remediation of a total of 50 acres of property in North Tiverton for the last five and a half years, ever since a sewer construction crew came across soil tinged a cobalt blue – a marker of cyanide.

Jury selection in the trial was to start today.

But yesterday afternoon, U.S. Senior Judge Ernest C. Torres heard from lawyers for the homeowner plaintiffs and the defendant, the Texas-based utility Southern Union, that they had reached a “potential settlement,” according to Torres’ clerk, Ryan Jackson.

He said Torres received the news in a “sealed hearing” and declined further comment, except to say that the trial has been taken off the judge’s calendar.

Robert McConnell, a lead lawyer for the plaintiffs, described the deal hammered out by the lawyers as a “conditional settlement.”

McConnell said he expected “that the condition will be met and the case will be resolved,” but he declined any further comment.

Lead plaintiffs Gail and John Corvello said that they are “cautiously optimistic.”

Corvello is president of the Environmental Neighborhood Awareness Committee of Tiverton, ENACT, the grass-roots group that spearheaded the lawsuit.

They, too, said they were not allowed to talk about the case. John Corvello cautioned that there could be a “bump in the road” which would land them back in court.

“Everything is still up in the air,” Corvello said.

-- Journal staff writer Gina Macris

The state Department of Environmental Management has placed civil responsibility for cleaning up the contamination on Southern Union, the successor to the former Fall River Gas Co., which manufactured gas from coal in the early part of the 20th century.

Southern Union has vigorously denied any responsibility, contesting the case in exhaustive discovery proceedings on parallel tracks both in U.S. District Court and in an administrative appeal of a DEM order dating from January 2006 that the utility submit plans to remediate the soil.

The plaintiffs were prepared to present eyewitness testimony that wastes from the Fall River Gas Co. were dumped just over the city line in what was to become the Bay Street neighborhood of Tiverton.

In addition to cyanide, the contaminants include lead, arsenic, naphthalene, and polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), which are known carcinogens, according to DEM.

In a 2004 Journal profile of the issue, residents told of how they use plastic flowers as lawn decorations and how Corvello covered her backyard with $2,000 worth of foam tiles so children at her house-based daycare center could play outside.

The Journal reported this January that some 250 people in 100 houses in the Bay Street neighborhood have been unable to sell or refinance because of the toxic soil on their properties.

Posted by Mike McKinney at 4:50 PM | Permalink

April 23, 2008

Update: Settlement in Tiverton soil contamination suit

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