THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 14, 1995 TAG: 9512140363
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LAURA LAFAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
City officials knew 10 years ago that toxic contaminants from a city-owned site had infiltrated Norfolk's groundwater, but they didn't tell anyone who lives or owns property near the site, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
The suit names both the city and Virginia Power - which formerly owned the site - as defendants. It was filed by Frank Spicer Inc., a restaurant equipment company with three properties close to the contaminated area.
Soil tests on Spicer's property show that it contains a number of toxic contaminants, the lawsuit alleges. Spicer wants $15 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
``These compounds are some of the most acutely toxic known to mankind,'' Michael Imprevento, one of Spicer's lawyers, said Tuesday.
``For the city to allow them to be visited on a citizen like Mr. Spicer and not to say anything to him or to other adjoining property owners is absolutely irresponsible,'' he said.
The area at issue is at the intersection of Monticello Avenue and Virginia Beach Boulevard. From 1853 to 1950, Virginia Electric and Power Co. operated a coal gasification plant on the southern half of the property. In 1950, the plant was converted to a natural gas storage facility which was occasionally used to manufacture gas.
The plant closed in 1968. A few years later, the city purchased the site.
According to Spicer's lawsuit, the city uncovered hazardous waste on the site during the construction of a sewer trunk line. An investigation revealed that the toxins had contaminated the groundwater aquifer.
The state's Department of Environmental Quality also studied the site and concluded it should be permanently sealed. Last summer, seven years after the discovery of the toxins, the city paid $1.3 million to cover the lot with 5,000 tons of asphalt, enclose it with a red brick wall with pillars, and install antique, acorn-shaped lanterns.
The area would be a 1,200-space ``park-n-ride'' lot from which shoppers could be shuttled to the proposed downtown MacArthur Center, a city design engineer told a reporter last summer. Virginia Power contributed about $500,000 to the project.
Meanwhile, across the street in his kitchen equipment store, Frank Spicer was still trying to figure out the source of a bad smell.
He first noticed it ``about eight years ago,'' Spicer said Wednesday. It was a ``sweetish sewer odor.'' He figured it was a gas leak and complained to the gas company.
Over the years, Spicer said, the gas company has visited his properties many times. Last month, workers tore up the street in front of his store in search of a leaky gas line.
``I never complained to the city,'' said Spicer. ``I never thought the city had anything to do with it. I thought the gas company would be responsible for gas.''
After reading a newspaper story this summer about the paving of the toxic graveyard across the street, Spicer said, he called his lawyer.
``I asked him, `Hey, do you think that place, being as how it's the most contaminated place in the state of Virginia, is bothering my property?' ''
On the advice of his lawyer, Spicer hired an environmental consulting firm to test the soil on his land.
According to his lawsuit, the tests revealed that Spicer's property was contaminated with toxins produced by by-products of the manufactured gas process.
Those substances, the suit alleges, ``are acutely toxic, chronically toxic and carcinogenic,'' and include cyanide, arsenic, chromium, lead and a number of polyaromatic hydrocarbons that can, at low levels, cause severe damage to the central nervous system.
At certain concentrations, a number of the chemicals listed in the lawsuit cause cancer, said Kim Coble, a senior scientist at the Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Others can cause nerve, skin and brain damage. Two of them - benzene and toluene - can cause damage to the central nervous system and depression, she said.
Frank Spicer is depressed, but he thinks it's because his property has been devalued, his livelihood is at risk and he's not sure how contamination has affected the health of his employees and family.
``I'm depressed, all right,'' Spicer said. ``I'm depressed now that I've found out my property's been contaminated. If I wanted to sell my business, I couldn't very well do it without telling the buyer. And if I were a buyer and someone told me a piece of property was contaminated, I wouldn't even consider it.''
Spicer said he has roughly $1 million invested in his property, which includes his kitchen equipment business plus two nearby buildings which he rents out to an equipment rental company and a security company.
All of the property, according to his lawsuit, is downhill from the city site, meaning that ``surface water and groundwater from the site have in the past and continue today to carry hazardous substances and hazardous wastes'' onto Spicer's property.
It is not known if other properties have also been contaminated, said Bruce Wilcox, another member of Spicer's legal team.
``We have only seen testing done on the soil taken from Mr. Spicer's property,'' Wilcox said.
Norfolk City Attorney Philip Trapani did not return a phone call about the case on Wednesday. MEMO: Staff writer Marc Davis contributed to this report. ILLUSTRATION: HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot color photos
by CNB