Visiting Burrillville’s MTBE contamination site

During the three day march from Providence to Burrillville, ahead of Governor Raimondo’s meeting with residents, the people protesting Invenergy‘s planned $700 million fracked gas and diesel oil burning power plant made one small detour to the site of the 2001 MTBE disaster that affected and even destroyed so many lives in Pascoag. On the site of a long dead ExxonMobil Gas Station, overgrown with weeds and bushes, where only rubble and dirt remain, the marchers gathered to refresh themselves and listen to the stories of an environmental disaster.

Pascoag resident Thomas Sylvester laid out the scene for everyone. The gas station is on a hill. The contaminated water wells are about a quarter mile down the road. “Under where we are standing there is shell ledge and bedrock that is permeated with gasoline,” said Sylvester, “we speak about MTBE but really what we’re talking about is a gas spill.”

The wells that were contaminated were new. It took only months to reveal that they were contaminated. “What this means is that this gas station was leaking for a long time before those wells ever went in,” said Sylvester, “MTBE is a tracer, it’s the first contaminant to come out.” This means that the rest of the gasoline, and all the “really nasty stuff” that makes it up, is right behind the MTBE. In truth, the MTBE is only a small part of the problem, and a sign of bigger problems ahead.

Opening the well down the hill won’t remediate the area, says Sylvester. If someone were truly interested in remediating the water, the would put a well “almost where we are standing.” Using the well down the hill will only draw more contaminants down the hill, the “really nasty stuff” that right now is contained beneath the long dead Mobil station. The plan currently under consideration by Invenergy will draw more contaminants into the aquifer says Sylvester. Residents with their own wells might find their water becoming contaminated years from now.

There were a thousand homes and 4000 residents affected by the MTBE contamination. It took years for the state to be involved. People hired their own water safety experts, hired their own lawyers. There was no Energy Facilities Siting Board to hear their worries.

Sylvester first noticed the contamination when his wife was nursing their son, and the baby’s face became red and irritated where it came in contact with his wife’s skin. She had recently taken a shower, and the MTBE was hurting her baby. The sweet smell of the contamination filled the house. Sylvester began putting saran wrap over the toilets. He used bottled water in his house’s steam heating to minimize exposure to the well water. He and his family bathed and did laundry at their relative’s homes. They went without water, except for toilets, for 248 days.

Terri Lacey told the story of her niece and nephew, who “lived right around the corner.” They had a little girl at the time. Lacey’s niece developed thyroid cancer and her nephew developed Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Her nephew was given last rites four times before a treatment finally sent his cancer into remission.

“I remember being in the shower and feeling something, I couldn’t even describe it. The water didn’t feel right on my skin and there was a smell….”

Invenergy “is not remediating [the well] for us, they’re opening a monster for us.”