W. R. Grace still fails the test

(This news analysis was prompted by a newspaper article I had read in the Daily Times Chronicle -- the newspaper's name had been changed in the 1980s. I was working for Essex County Newspapers at the time, but I still lived in Woburn. The article cited a series of half-truths and distorted history presented by W. R. Grace officials as part of their propaganda campaign to offset the release of the movie A Civil Action. From the moment the company was first sued, until today, it has stonewalled beyond belief.)

News Analysis

By CHARLES C. RYAN

It would appear that W. R. Grace Co. and President Bill Clinton have something in common -- neither one is capable of telling the truth about past improprieties.

A perfect example is the recent compilation of half-truths and mis-remembered history presented to the public by the giant chemical company.

How much does W. R. Grace care about the truth?

Well, guess what the reward was for the one employee of W. R. Grace who told the truth?

Al Love lost his job when the company closed its operations at 369 Washington Street, in Woburn, and was forced to take an early retirement.

What was the reward for one of its employees who always tried to put a happy face on everything -- he was made the firm's director of environment, health and safety.

And it was the latter, attorney Mark Stoler, who presented a version of events to Woburn's citizens last week that was no more true than the movie released this weekend in New York and L.A. The difference, of course, is that Hollywood compresses and realigns the facts to create a fictional entertainment. There's nothing entertaining about Grace's fabrications.

Triple damages

If, as Stoler claims, the company's testing has shown that the site was not responsible for contaminating wells G & H, then it would not have participated in the cleanup. Nor would it still be participating in the cleanup of the Aberjona River aquifer.

The company is participating in the cleanup of its site, and the cleanup of the river's aquifer because it would be charged triple damages under the federal Super Fund law if it didn't.

Did the W. R. Grace Cryovac facility pollute the ground water -- yes, absolutely. But by the time W. R. Grace began the cleanup operation on its own property, most of those pollutants had already migrated off the property toward the wells.

In that light, Stoler's claim that "less than five gallons" of contaminants have been recovered from the site is meaningless, and clearly misleading.

Did, as Stoler claims, employees dump small amounts of chemicals on the ground between 1960 and the mid-1970s according to the "standard industry disposal method at the time"?

Again, a half-truth on top of a half truth. While it is true that most companies in the 1960s didn't realize that small amounts of chemicals dumped on their property might contaminate drinking water wells hundreds of yards away, there was no "standard practice" that required them to dump those chemicals. Nor did W. R. Grace admit to those dumpings until Al Love, one of its employees, came forward and told the truth.

Criminal penalties

Grace's Attorney Stoler accidently left out the fact that W. R. Grace not only misrepresented things to the public, it did so to the EPA as well, and was eventually fined $10,000 on a criminal charge of lying to the U.S. Government about the amount of chemicals it used.

Furthermore, in the case of W. R. Grace, the use of the chemical TCE and its subsequent dumping violated one of its own internal memos that Cryovac director Vincent Forte chose to ignore. So its dumping wasn't even in keeping with its own standard practices at the time.

He also -- accidently I'm sure -- completely left out of his "happy" history the handful of barrels filled with chemicals that Grace buried in an excavation on its property at the time a new addition was built. This excavation was later unearthed by the EPA -- again, thanks to Al Love, not W. R. Grace.

Probably the most amusing observation made by Stoler during his presentation was the claim that half of the water which went into G. and H. wells came from the Aberjona River -- as if half a glass of poison was any better than a full glass.

Gymnastics on the river

This finding was made by the federal government, but it, too, is misleading.

One would think that, after all these years, Mr. Stoler, especially in his position of responsibility, might have learned a little about ground water, aquifers, and rivers.

The federal tests of the Aberjona River aquifer were conducted in the winter, when the ground water was high.

Those familiar with the annual cycle of weather in New England know that rain and snow in the fall and winter seep into the ground and recharge the ground water aquifers, and surcharge the rivers, so that come the spring thaw, the rivers run full, sometimes so full they cause flooding in adjacent communities.

Then comes summer, and less rainfall, and the volume of water in rivers drops. The ground water also recedes.

In point of fact, G and H wells in East Woburn were never used when the river was full and the ground water was high.

Quite the opposite, the wells were used during periods of drought, when the river flow was very low and ground water levels had lowered as well.

In the spring, water from surcharged rivers also surcharges the ground water.

During a drought, the opposite happens. Water from the aquifers seeps out of the ground and flows into the rivers. The water in the aquifer recedes at a slower rate than that in the river, in part, because it isn't subject to evaporation from the sun, because it's underground, and in part because it flows to the sea at a much slower rate than surface water.

What this means is that when G and H wells were used, most of the water came from the aquifers and not the river. And even then, a good portion of the water from the river also came from the aquifers, making Grace's argument about half the water coming from the river silly indeed.

A good citizen?

In 1982, when the eight Woburn families filed suit in federal court against W. R. Grace, the company responded aggressively, with statements which accused the families of falsehoods.

That W. R. Grace response was 100 percent wrong, yet those statements were never retracted. No apologies were ever issued. Oh, I'm sorry, Attorney Stoler did admit, "We made (unspecified) mistakes." And then some.

It is true that W. R. Grace has taken a number of steps since the trial to rectify the problems it contributed to in the East Woburn aquifer. Most of those steps were, in essence, ordered by the federal government, but Grace bit the bullet and moved forward.

The company has also offered prizes at high school science fairs, held Thanksgiving dinners for the city's senior citizens, and tested some adjacent property for contaminants.

But, as far as I'm concerned, it has not become "... one of Woburn's model corporate citizens."

I am certain that Anne Anderson, and the rest of the families involved in the lawsuit would agree.

If W. R. Grace truly wants to earn that title, then Mark Stoler, accompanied by the Grace CEO, will come to Woburn, stand on the steps of City Hall, and do something that even the Japanese Government learned to do (when it apologized for bombing Pearl Harbor).

They will admit full culpability for all of the company's misdeeds, stop trying to rewrite history in their own favor, and apologize.

They will apologize for the pollution.

They will apologize for the subsequent cover ups which continue to this day.

They will apologize, directly to the families affected, for the illnesses and the deaths.

It's a matter of honor.

(I double-checked with the EPA. It doesn't matter to the EPA whether Grace ever polluted the wells, the fact the company polluted the ground water was sufficient for it to act and make Grace participate in the clean-up. However, EPA officials reconfirmed that every sample of water taken from wells G & H and ALL of the wells located between W.R. Grace's property and G & H wells was contaminated with TCE, beginning in 1979 when the first test was done. There is another very real irony here. It is true that the city rarely used G & H wells because every time they were activated, citizens complained. But the wells were used enough to cause some serious health effects. Normally ground water flows to the sea very slowly, a matter of a few inches or feet a year. But that flow can be seriously increased by having large wells pump water from the ground. Even though the city's wells were only used when there was a near drought, that is not true of another large well -- the production well used by the John J. Riley Co. The Riley well was used on a regular basis. If wells G & H and the Riley well had never been drilled and had never been used, then there is a chance the TCE on the W. R. Grace property might never have reached the location of the city's wells. But the regular pumping of the Riley well speeded up the flow of water and contaminants from the Grace property, probably even bringing some of the TCE into the Riley well, as well as wells G & H.)