By DAVID FISHER/ecoRI staff

The city of Providence was slow to post warning signs, so Reservoir Triangle residents did the work themselves. (Photo courtesy of Jim Amspacher)PROVIDENCE — Fourteen feet. That’s the distance from the westernmost outer wall of Alvarez High School to the 8-foot-high fence surrounding the still-contaminated section of the 37-acre parcel where the Gorham silver manufacturing company used to sit on the banks of Mashapaug Pond.

Contaminants known to be present at the site of the old factory, and in the pond, include trichloroethylene (TCE), tetrachloroethylene (PCE), heavy metals and other persistent organic pollutants associated with silver processing and manufacturing. Both TCE and PCE are known human carcinogens. The former has been linked to kidney and liver disease, and studies, including a study of 99 twins conducted by Samuel Goldman and researchers at the Parkinson’s Institute in Sunnyvale, Calif., have determined there is a “lot of circumstantial evidence” that exposure to PCE increases the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease by at least a factor of six.

When testing and the clean up of the site began in the early 1990s, Textron Inc., which acquired Gorham in 1967, was deemed to be the responsible party, meaning the financial onus of testing and clean up of the contaminated parcel fell on the Providence-based company. But, when the city of Providence began building the Alvarez School in 2007 without the proper approvals from the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM), the agency sued the city, resulting in a court order that deemed the city responsible for maintaining a barrier around the environmentally compromised area.

By the court’s decision, that barrier must have three essential components: a fence no less than 8 feet high; trees, shrubs and other vegetation to deter climbing or cutting of the fence; and warning signs in English and Spanish notifying people of the contamination and that a cleanup is underway.

The fence is there, and the vegetation is there, but residents of the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood noticed that the signs disappeared about 18 months ago.

“If it is the city’s responsibility to make sure my community is well informed and safe from being exposed to toxic chemicals, then I want them to make correcting these problems a top priority,” said Ricardo Patino, an Adelaide Avenue resident who recently bought a home across from the Gorham site.

In early April, Reservoir Triangle residents made a request to the Providence Redevelopment Agency (PRA), the current owner of the parcel, to replace the signs, repair holes in the fence and replace broken locks on the fence’s gates. At this point, Tom Deller, director of the PRA, assured the residents that the proper city department would replace the signs as soon as possible and that they had already been ordered through the Department of Public Property and Buildings, under the direction of Alan Sepe.

On May 11, Deller reaffirmed his assurances in front of 50 or so residents of the South Side neighborhood and members of the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island.

In the first week of June, a full eight weeks after the original request, holes in the fence were repaired and the locks for the gates were replaced, but as of June 23 none of the signs had been replaced, so residents took matters into their own hands.

That evening, a group of about 25 people, including representatives of the Environmental Justice League, gathered at the long-contaminated site and hung hand-painted signs, in English and Spanish, on the fence surrounding the toxic real estate. It took them less than a half hour to complete the task.

“Many people in our neighborhood are new residents and they have no idea there used to be a factory right next door,” said Diane Rose, a Reservoir Triangle resident for more than 12 years and one of the organizers of Wednesday’s event. “My neighbors and I saw families, with little kids, using the parcel behind me as a play space because they just thought it was an empty lot. We saw people driving motorcycles up the contaminated debris pile that’s been left on the land, stirring up dust and then having picnics with their families on the bare ground. That is unacceptable.”

Neighbor Lazaro Quezada can’t believe a public school was built on the contaminated site and in some spots a mere 14 feet from unremediated parcels. (David Fisher/ecoRI staff)Lazaro Quezada, a resident of the neighborhood for five years and a father of two, estimated that “less than half” of the people living in the neighborhood were aware of the toxic nature of the site. “A lot of people got frustrated and gave up on this fight,” he said. “I mean, we didn’t even want the school to be built there, but there it is.”

“It’s crucially important that residents remain vigilant, especially (concerning) brownfield sites that typically take many, many years to fully clean up,” said Amelia Rose, director of the Environmental Justice League. “Without fully secured barriers and signs informing people about the site, the city is creating the potential for the unnecessary exposure to toxic chemicals for neighbors, students and staff at the school, and other residents who don’t know the history of Gorham.”

Officials at the Department of Public Property and Buildings said the signs have been received and should be posted by next week.

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Public meeting held to spur officials to action

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI staff

The 37-acre former Gorham Manufacturing Co. is broken into four sections — still-contaminated Parcel C, left; Parcel B, the site of Alvarez High School, second from left; Parcel A, which includes the now-vacant Stop & Shop building and three other commercial spaces, right; and Parcel D, better know as the Mashapaug Pond cove. (Department of Environmental Management)PROVIDENCE — Most of the two dozen or so Reservoir Triangle neighborhood residents in attendance bit their tongues when it came to the still-sensitive subject of Alvarez High School — formerly Adelaide High School — even though they were gathered in its cafeteria.

After all, last week’s community-organized meeting was arranged to discuss the decades-long remediation of the entire 37-acre Gorham silver manufacturing site. Besides, as one seemingly annoyed resident noted, the hastily built school already has spent the past two years sitting atop soil contaminated with industrial pollutants.

As a result of the various manufacturing processes used at the Gorham factory for nearly a century, much of the land and water on the Adelaide Avenue site were significantly contaminated. Chemical solvents, such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE), that were used to clean metal and machine parts in the factory seeped into the land and created underground pools. These chemicals are volatile organic compounds, meaning they can turn into a gas that people might breathe in. They also are known to be human carcinogens.

The cove of Mashapaug Pond directly behind the high school also shows high levels of heavy metals such as lead and compounds such as dioxins and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, making it unsafe to eat fish from the pond, swim or come into direct contact with the water or soil at the bottom of the pond, according to the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, which has been working with Reservoir Triangle residents for the past few months.

“Many people in our neighborhood are new residents and they have no idea there used to be a factory right next door,” said Diane Rose, a Reservoir Triangle resident for six years and one of the organizers of last Tuesday’s public meeting. “There are no signs to warn people there’s a cleanup happening. There are gaps in the fences. People have been using parts of the site that haven’t been cleaned up to play with their kids. This is unacceptable.”

After two years of silence from the parties responsible for the investigation and clean up of the polluted property — the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM), Textron Inc. and the city of Providence — neighbors of the former Gorham Manufacturing Co. invited key members of the responsible parties to Alvarez High School for what turned out to be a civil interrogation.

Residents said they are concerned about a lack of warning signs — in both English and Spanish — at the four-parcel site, gaps in the fences and open gates that are supposed to prevent access to still-contaminated sections and a lack of communication regarding the remaining cleanup that needs to take place.

They hope the recent meeting spurs the responsible parties into action.

“The people living next to the Gorham site have played an incredibly important role throughout the clean-up process for a number of years, pointing out problems that the authorities weren’t even aware of,” said Amelia Rose, director of the Environmental Justice League. “Resident oversight and involvement is critical to making sites like Gorham safe both during and after a cleanup happens, so that the land can be put back into good use for the benefit of the community.”

Tom Deller, director of the Providence Redevelopment Agency and the city’s Department of Planning and Development, told residents that signs have been ordered and gaps in the fences have been repaired. He also said the city is looking for funding to bring some of the contaminated sections up to residential/recreation standards.

Controversial matter
The cleanup of the Gorham site is a complex situation that has been fraught with controversy for years, intensifying in 2006 when the city decided to build a public high school on the property.

Two years after Alvarez High School opened, neighborhood residents said they are frustrated by how quickly a new school was built on the site while some of the property’s other 33 acres remain uncapped and contaminated.

Reservoir Triangle residents are concerned about an uncovered mound of contaminated debris that sits less than 20 yards from Alvarez High School and the dust from it that is blown about the neighborhood. (Frank Carini/ecoRI staff photos)They are particularly concerned about an uncovered mound of contaminated debris that sits less than 20 yards from the new high school and the dust from it that is blown about the neighborhood.

Joe Martella, the DEM’s senior sanitary engineer, told those gathered that the pile has been tested and contains some contamination, but is clean enough to use as a fill material. He said the plan is to spread the material from the mound to level the site, which will then be capped with clean soil or pavement, depending on the future use of the property.

In 2006, the DEM approved a clean-up work plan for the site — referred to as Parcel C in legal documents and reports — but it was never implemented because the YMCA withdrew its plans to build on the unremediated property.

The YMCA has been asked to give up its rights to the parcel, but some far it has balked, according to Deller.

Plans for the currently contaminated site include ball fields, additional parking for the high school and housing, depending up whom is asked.

Ricardo Patino, who lives directly across from the new high school and Parcel C, said the focus should be on cleaning up the fenced-off site next to Alvarez High and less on its future use.

“That site needs to be remediated now, because we as residents face that problem every day,” he said. “We want a real plan for the parcel, but it needs to be cleaned up first.”

In addition to getting commitments from the city to replace signs and maintain the fences, residents also asked Textron and DEM to outline the remaining steps and timeline regarding the remediation of the two parcels — C and the cove — that are still significantly contaminated.

“We know a lot has been done to ensure the safety of the students and staff at the school, including installing a ventilation system and regular indoor air testing,” Patino said. “But by allowing some parts of the site to remain unremediated much longer only worsens the situation and creates more potential for exposure to the toxic chemicals we know are in the ground and water on the site.”

Textron and the DEM expect to unveil a remediation plan for the rest of the contaminated parcels this summer, according to Martella. A public comment period will be held, he said.

Polluted parcels
Earlier this decade, 18,580 tons of petroleum-saturated soil and an additional 82 tons of soil contaminated with copper and/or lead were treated and returned to the Stop & Shop site on Adelaide Avenue in Providence.Parcel A includes the now-vacant Stop & Shop building and three other commercial spaces — two of which have tenants, a church and a check-cashing agent — a large parking lot and a now-closed gas station.

This was first part of the site to be remediated and developed, as Textron, which bought the property in 1967, agreed to clean up the parcel to meet DEM’s industrial/commercial reuse standards.

In 2001 and ’02, 18,580 tons of petroleum-saturated soil were treated and then returned to the parcel. An additional 82 tons of soil contaminated with copper and/or lead were treated and returned.

There is a large perchloroethylene (PCE) groundwater plume under the Stop & Shop parking lot. The source of the plume is less than 150 feet southeast of the new high school. Since 2006, the plume has been treated by injecting a substance called sodium permanganate under the ground, which according to Steven Fischbach, a community lawyer with Rhode Island Legal Services, has proven ineffective.

The now-closed gas station doesn’t sit far from Alvarez High School, in the background.DEM also required the installation of monitoring wells along Adelaide Avenue and along the border of the high school site to ensure no contaminated groundwater is moving off Parcel A.

Textron originally agreed to remediate Parcel B — the site of the new high school — up to industrial/commercial standards, but if the city wanted to build a school, it would have to bring the 4-acre parcel up to more strict residential standards. In 2005, the city violated DEM’s orders by starting development work before receiving approvals. The school opened in 2008.

Indoor air quality of the school, which enrolls about 600 students, is tested every three months to ensure there is no contamination. A sub-slab ventilation system also was installed to vent out any potential soil gas vapors coming from contaminated groundwater. No problems have been detected.

Fences behind Alvarez High School are supposed to keep the polluted Mashapaug Pond cove off-limits. While in operation, Gorham used a 4-acre company-owned cove on 70-acre Mashapaug Pond as a waste lagoon. The cove — referred to as Parcel D — was long ignored before dioxins and PCBs were found in sediment and fish tissue.

A highly toxic slag pile, with high levels of lead and copper, also was found on the banks of the cove. Under court order, Textron removed the slag pile — the only form of remediation that has been conducted on the parcel to date.

Silver metal
The manufacturing complex on Mashapaug Pond, near Providence’s border with Cranston, began production in 1890. At its height, the Gorham Manufacturing Co. had 30 buildings on the property and was one of the largest silver manufacturers in the world. It operated three shifts of 1,000 workers each.

Gorham’s various manufacturing processes included milling, forging, heat treating, plating, lacquering, polishing and degreasing.

Textron bought Gorham in 1967, hoping to integrate the plant’s silver capabilities into its electronics division. The plant was closed in 1986, when Textron sold the facility to the Winoker Group. The Winoker Group subsequently sold the facility to another group of investors, the Adelaide Development Corp., which in turn sold the facility to the Seaman Equity Group.

In 1990, Seaman defaulted on its taxes, and the city of Providence foreclosed. The city currently owns the property at 333 Adelaide Ave.

The property is bordered to the east by railroad tracks. Adelaide Avenue and a residential neighborhood bound the property to the south. To the north and west, the site is bordered by Mashapaug Pond. Groundwater beneath the former facility flows predominantly in a northerly direction and discharges into the cove.

For more information, visit dem.ri.gov.

Rhode Island Needs Local, Healthy Foods

to be Better Available to All Families

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI staff

Frozen burritos, Twinkies, Doritos, microwave-ready meats and all other the processed foods that fill the shelves of neighborhood bodegas provide shoppers will little hope of a balanced diet.

Despite an abundance of food in this country, an increasing number of people, especially those living in inner cities, have limited access to healthy food.

It’s a problem the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, Farm Fresh Rhode Island, Kids First, the Southside Community Land Trust and other local organizations are attempting to solve.

“We now spend more money on health care than we do on food,” said Amelia Rose, the lead organizer for the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island. “As a society, we used to spend a larger percentage on food and less on health care.”

For many activists, such as Rose and Jenn Baumstein, the food systems coordinator for Farm Fresh Rhode Island, access to healthy food is a human rights issue that calls for a locally driven and organized response.

“Access to healthy foods should be a basic human right,” Rose said. “Instead, people of color and low-income families have easy access to unhealthy foods.”

To help solve that problem, the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, a mostly volunteer organization, is working with corner storeowners in Providence to have them reduce their junk-food inventory by 5 percent.

“We want to get these owners to care more about selling healthy foods,” Rose said. “We’re working with them on ways to improve the quality of the foods they sell.”

Since the 1980s, however, the role of neighborhood variety stores has changed. These inner-city mainstays used to feature meat, dairy and produce, but now primarily sell cigarettes, lottery tickets, phone cards and junk food.

This shift in what merchants stocked occurred for a variety of reasons. Demand for tobacco and snack foods increased; many small storeowners found it difficult to sell fresh foods because they lacked experience with produce and other perishables; and corner stores rely heavily on nonperishable foods that have a longer shelf life.

A super loss
The loss of inner-city supermarkets during the past 40 years, as urban populations shifted to the suburbs, leaving fewer people and reduced purchasing power in cities, left residents of low-income urban neighborhoods with limited access to high-quality food and fewer options.

In these impoverished neighborhoods, healthier foods are harder to find and they often are more expensive. Conversely, nutrient-starved processed foods are easily accessible and much easier to find.

Affordable housing, public safety, education and economic opportunities dominate community development issues, and rightfully so, but seldom are basic concerns, such as the amount of diesel pollution being spewed into a particular neighborhood or how accessible is quality food, planned for or even discussed.

A good indicator of any neighborhood’s well-being, however, is how its residents feed themselves.

For many urban-area residents who rely on public transportation, junk-food filled convenience stores and fast-food joints are their only real options.

In South Providence, for example, where more than one out of three families lives in poverty, only five convenience and grocery stores sell whole fruit, vegetables and 1 percent milk, and most residents live a quarter-mile to a half-mile away from one of them, according to the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island.

To further illustrate the point, Rose noted that there is one supermarket for about 44,000 West Side residents while the 35,000 or so residents of the East Side of Providence have four supermarkets to choose from.

In fact, middle- and upper-income neighborhoods have 2.26 times as many supermarkets per capita than low-income neighborhoods, according to a report by the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College.

Unhealthy diets hurt everyone
A diet low in fruits and vegetables and high in processed foods, especially those containing high-fructose corn syrup, increases the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other health problems. Poor dietary habits also contribute to this country’s obesity epidemic and add strain to an already-ailing health-care system.

While obesity — and all the ills linked to it, from cardiovascular disease and hypertension to diabetes, gout and arthritis — is influenced by a variety of factors, such as heredity, eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle, nutrition experts believe part of the problem among the urban poor is their limited access to healthy foods.

That is why the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, Farm Fresh Rhode Island and others are focused on creating community-based ways of producing food in an affordable, sustainable and environmentally friendly manner.

They stress the importance of small, local farms, and healthy food options at public schools. They are working with high school and college students on the importance of providing access to healthy foods for everyone.
Farm Fresh promotes farmers’ markets, community gardens and local food production by Rhode Island’s more than 600 farms.

Last year, several Farm Fresh-sponsored farmers’ markets began accepting food stamps — or electronic benefit transfer (EBT) as the program is now called — and this year, Baumstein said, these markets have experienced a 500 percent increase in the number of EBTs being used to buy local foods.

In June, Farm Fresh began its summer pilot season of Market Mobile, delivering food one day a week from 23 local farms and producers to the Providence, Newport and Narragansett areas. Since then, the program has served 54 customers, and recently passed $100,000 in sales.

Farm Fresh is working on expanding its winter farmers’ market — “if there’s a demand, Rhode Island farmers will meet it,” Baumstein said — and the nonprofit organization has had preliminary discussions about opening a centrally located “hub for local food.”

“Local food is more important than organic,” Baumstein said. “We need to increase access to local food in our underserved communities.”