There has never been any hazardous material contaminating anyone or anything coming from this property. This decades-long ordeal is about proving that no hazardous material can possibly contaminate anything from this property in the future. This is about the expense and Kafkaesque bureaucracy of proving that fact.
In November of 2006 I became interested in this commercial building at 233 East Main Street, Torrington, which once was a dry cleaner. I made an offer contingent that “property to be delivered clear and in accordance with the Connecticut Transfer Accordance Act” commonly called the Transfer Act. I was rebuffed and instead leased the property beginning in August of 2007.
I would not buy the place for fair market value in 2007, but after owner Gene Luciano’s death the family did not want the place. I continued to lease from the estate and purchased it the following year under the Transfer Act paying $35,000 via private funding in November of 2011. Yeah, well, that might seem like very cheap, but you don’t know about the Transfer Act yet. Everyone who knows anything about the Transfer Act says I was foolish to buy it at any price.
The only hazardous material detected on this property was found in three out of 120 soil samples which came from 14 borings. But off the property, in 1993 water samples taken at the Wall Street gas station some 75 yards downstream (the property line is the Naugatuck River) found 27 parts per billion (ppb) of dry cleaning fluid called Perc.
This whole story is about Perc. Tetrachloroethylene, also known as tetrachloroethene, or perchloroethylene, or PCE and many other names. It is a chlorocarbon with the formula Cl2C=CCl2.
The Story
The owner of Luciano’s Cleaning Clinic, Eugene Luciano died in February of 2010. Gene was a genuine hero of World War II and had the medals to prove it. He wrote a book which he gave away to all who wanted it and signed my copy for me. At the end of the war in Germany he and three other Americans brought in several dozen prisoners without firing a shot. He told me they had been trying to get the guys to surrender for days and the three of them had gone out scouting behind the German position. All of a sudden they found themselves facing the backs of about 50 guys all armed pointing the other way, at the American position.
Gene said he doesn’t know what got into him, and he doesn’t even know what the other two Americans were doing, but Gene yelled in German a phrase that meant surrender, put down your weapons, and the Germans did it. The three of them marched the Germans to the American position.
Gene was a pip, a little guy. He would offer to show the scars where he was shot. I introduced him to my mother, the both of them in their 80s, and he said in an opening remark “I could make love to you, you know”. So my mother sat down with us in the kitchen that day.
He bought this location after the great Flood of 1955. It was one of the oldest houses in Torrington and seen on the maps from the early 1800s. Gene said it was a roadside rest stop for people traveling from Hartford to Albany, which it very well might have been according to the Torrington Historical Society. Gene was born in the house next door, which is now a four family apartment building. Gene’s father’s house was built in 1900 or so like so many houses in Torrington. Gene was born to a large family and did not have anything good to say about his father, who owned the house until he died.
Behind his father’s house was a garage that was lost in the flood. Gene used to clean carpets in that garage, but after the flood he needed to find a new location for his rug cleaning so he borrowed money from his wife’s family and bought this historic landmark. He jacked it up eight feet, added a basement, two car garage and tripled the size of the house with the dry cleaning shop add-on. He paved nearly every square inch of the property that was not inside. Three quarters of the property now is the old cleaners and I live in the apartment, the original 2 story house, but completely rebuilt in the early 1960s. The original beams are visible from the basement, some of them 18 inches square and hand hewn.
Gene struggled with the Act when he wanted to sell his property. He paid HRP Associates LLC, a major player in this sad story, $20,000. I will always remember Gene telling me about them with these words: “That’s how they fucked me, Kent”. He said it nearly every time he spoke on the subject. He so regretted ever letting them near his property for testing. Gene did not realize he didn’t have any choice, of course. He saw it all as a scam, which in a way it is.
He paid HRP thinking they would prove what he knew to be true, that the property was not contaminated. Gene would tell stories about how careful he was, how his brother who worked in cleaning at a different Torrington location had died from exposure to Perc. Perc is what people in the industry call the dry cleaning chemical that he could always smell it on his brother. Gene was careful not to mis-handle Perc, he said.
When he wanted to sell the property I believe Gene just felt rich. It is a nice property in what he considered to be a prosperous area of downtown, worth a lot of money. He certainly asked for a lot of money. David Dean was his Real Estate Agent, and Gene told me David Dean was the one who talked him into hiring HRP and get started on the Transfer Act to sell the property. So HRP did testing and prepared the Phase I reports required by the Transfer Act.
As you may have guessed by now HRP found some problems when they tested the property, and they could not let the property be transferred without a lot more testing, and more reports. The recommendations from the $20,000 Phase I report of course required more testing and Gene was quoted about $130,000 with no guarantees that would take care of the problems. No wonder he felt “fucked”.
While this was going on about 2003 Gene had another company remove the old underground oil tank so it didn’t pollute the ground in the future if it rusted out. It was common for small companies and even homes to have underground oil tanks at one time. But of course that can’t happen anymore. I once was talking to Scot of HRP and he pointed to the patch in the asphalt where the tank had been and referred to it as though he had removed the tank. I said I had new respect for HRP since they had done so within the $20,000 Gene had paid. Scot nodded, taking responsibility, but now, with more experience and having been through all the documents and bills, HRP had recommended the removal of the tank but Gene had paid another company to remove it.
The Background
According to our government if water testing detects an amount of Perc 25 ppb or below, that amount is not reportable. In 1993 the gas station detected 27 ppb, a reportable level. This was detected and reported one year after Luciano’s Cleaning Clinic had closed and sold all its equipment. At the time that level was reportable but not considered a hazard. There have been no detections of Perc in the vicinity before or since this one reported detection in 1993.
If Perc were detected at 2 ppb above the reportable limit today instead of 1993 it would be a hazard according to new standards of the State Department of Energy and Environmental Protection or DEEP. If it were a hazard there would have been requirements to notify people and test further and find the extent of the contamination. But at the time the level was merely reported and registered with the government.
Twenty-seven ppb was reported 75 meters downstream from the Cleaning Clinic in 1993. But on the property of the Clinic itself, with over $65,000 spent so far to follow DEEP directions, testing done in Phase I and Phase II for the Transfer Act from 2003 -2005 there were 120 soil samples from 14 borings, only three soil samples contained Perc. The highest sample was 122 ppb. The other two were 40 ppb and 35 ppb.
One hundred twenty two ppb is about 12 molecules per 100 million molecules. If there were 10 million marbles each of them one centimeter in diameter on the flat ground the marbles would cover 2.5 acres of land and one those marbles would represent Perc. One billion square centimeters, or marbles, are about as many marbles (or square centimeters) as would fit in Hangar One, a NASA building that covers about 8 acres of land and reaches a height of 200 feet. 112 of those marbles would represent Perc.
The dosage for LSD, a very, very potent drug is generally thought to be 100 micrograms for a 220 lb (100kg) adult. Assuming that in soil 1 ppb is 1 microgram per kilogram and in liquid 1 ppb equals 1 microgram per liter, then 112 ppb = 112 micrograms per liter. So one would drink nearly a liter of this solution for an LSD trip. Or in this case eat a kilogram of soil. If we were instead to compare to the water found contaminated at the level of 27 ppb in the gas station down the road, then one would have to drink 4.5 liters to get the 100 micrograms of an LSD dosage.
Ricin is touted as one of the most toxic poisons with a lethal dosage of one milligram per kilogram. That is one one hundredth the dosage for an LSD trip. So you would need to drink 45 liters of ricin solution for a lethal dose.
But if you don’t die both, ricin and LSD wear off. LSD has a half-life of less than 8 hours. Eventually there will be no measurable residue in your body to prove you ever ingested these substances.
I repeat in 1993 a level of Perc two parts per billion above the reportable level was found 75 meters downstream from this location. This is the only evidence of any hazardous material leaving this property and although it was detected it contaminated no one. It was found a year after stopping all dry cleaning and 25 years before these words were written. The laws and government regulations require a great deal of work and expense to prove these facts which no one doubts or disputes.
Our government environmental protection agencies regulate Perc at levels 200 times less than the most potent drugs that exist, while these quantities are buried in soil under a concrete building. And certainly the danger of LSD or ricin in the water would be a greater danger than Perc in the soil. Luckily I don’t have to test for LSD or ricin.
A World Health Organization survey published in 1996 reported:
“A survey of drinking-water in the USA in 1976–77 detected tetrachloroethene [Perc] in nine of 105 samples at levels ranging from 0.2 to 3.1 [ppb] (mean 0.81 ppb). In other surveys of drinking-water supplies in the USA, it was found that 3% of all public water-supply systems that used well-water contained tetrachloroethene [Perc] at concentrations of 0.5 ppb or higher.”
In general drinking water in the US has well under 1 ppb Perc. The EPA standard for drinking water is 5 ppb. The WHO nor OSHA nor anyone else I could find lists standards for water, only standards for air. The Transfer Act is not interested in the amount of Perc that is in the air.
Many people believe that if a gram of something is bad then a billionth of a gram is also bad. Often people argue that organic products are healthier because of less pesticides and other chemical residue in organics. The produce section of your supermarket has, on a very rough average, 4 times the pesticides found in organic produce in the same supermarket. Following this logical argument, if you eat an average four organic tomatoes you are just as contaminated with pesticides as if you ate one average non-organically grown tomato. Each of us has to decide if we want to spend extra money to avoid approximately one quarter of the pesticide and chemical residues on otherwise government approved vegetables and instead buy more expensive organic vegetables.
Here we are talking about government regulations concerning a known hazardous chemical from dry cleaning. No one reasonably believes there are harmful quantities of such chemicals here or that they can leech into our water. But government regulations require that we prove that they aren’t and it can’t. This chemical Perc, like pesticides and fertilizers, does not grow in the body. If you ingest a gram of these harmful chemicals you might show reactions and need treatment, but they will leave your body. And if you ingest a smaller quantity you might not have any symptoms, will not need treatment, and the chemical will leave your body even without you ever knowing.
The claims are that even when the amounts are small and there are no symptoms there could be damage done. Whether true or not, and all the claims about pesticides notwithstanding, the amount of chemicals we are talking about with Perc in ground water or drinking water are hundreds or even thousands of times less than the pesticide amounts in fresh produce. And like any other substance you ingest Perc will eventually leave your body. I am certainly not suggesting anyone taste anything harmful only pointing out that quantity makes a difference and we are not talking about sure and deadly consequences when we talk about ingesting these chemicals.
Captan is an ingredient in many pesticides that is detected in fruits and vegetables we buy at the store. I only chose to talk about this one because it is common and often listed first due to alphabetical order. The EPA (and curiously not the FDA) has instituted standards or a “tolerance” for public consumption of Captan and that tolerance is different for different produce. For blue berries that tolerance is 25 ppm (parts per million are a thousand times less than ppb) while for grapes the tolerance is 50 ppm. Of course it is extremely rare that any produce would contain that much Captan and generally the tests come up with a hundred times less than the maximum allowable. But even at these allowable limits of 10,000 times the amount of Perc in the samples at this site, there are no expected symptoms or treatment. If vegetables test that high don’t eat them. Report such a thing to the government and they will find out where they came from and stop any further contamination.
It is the same with Perc. The data about harmful effects of Perc are about breathing it, and the DEEP in Connecticut doesn’t care about Perc in the air. The dangers of Perc on the skin, we are told by OSHA, might cause a rash. But it is ridiculous to think that within a 100 yards of this location if all of the Perc molecules were gathered together in one place there would be enough there to cause such a rash.
With today’s technology we can detect parts per billion of Perc or Captan. That is like being able to count those 112 Perc marbles in the building that is 200 feet tall and covers 8 acres. Being able to detect the presence of Perc doesn’t mean that ingesting that amount of Perc is harmful. Even if you could separate them from the rest of the molecules there would not be enough there to do harm.
The FDA will allow the sale of produce with higher quantities of these chemicals than the DEEP will allow us to have in the soil under the basement. We might wonder why the EPA and the DEEP are more concerned about lower quantities of chemicals in our soil than the FDA is concerned with those chemicals in food we eat.
Somewhere between one ppb and 100,000 ppm is an amount that may cause harm to humans based on experiments with lab animals. The FDA has allowed either 50 ppm or 25 ppm for Captan on your fresh produce and the DEEP has disallowed 0.0005 ppm (5 ppb) Perc in the soil under my basement. EPA set maximum contaminant level or MCL at 5 ppb for drinking water and 25 ppb for ground water. If a level above 5 ppb is found in drinking water it must be reported and notices given to the public. However we can sell tomatoes with nearly a thousand times that concentration of Captan.
The Transfer Act is the law we are talking about here, not reason or logic, and the law requires one of several options be followed. The law guarantees that Licensed Environmental Professionals certify that the property is up to DEEP standards.
According to the WHO survey “Mice treated with doses as low as 70 mg per kg (70,000 ppb) of body weight per day exhibited significantly increased liver triglyceride levels and liver-to-body-weight ratios.”
The implication is that if people are like mice and a 220 pound (100 kg) person were to regularly ingest as little as 7 grams of Perc a day it might cause significant changes in that person’s liver function that would not be good.
But as I said no one believes there are 7 grams of Perc within 100 yards of this place, or that anyone would eat that much Perc if they could. But this is not about logic or reason; this is about laws, rules and regulations.
Phase I was completed by HRP in December of 2005 and Phase II in January of 2006. Gene paid $20,000.
Future editing,
The Transfer Act My point is there is no 100%. It isn’t digital, yes/no, safe/unsafe. It is an analog world and just because we can measure smaller and smaller quantities doesn’t mean such small quantities are dangerous. There is a level that is and always was equivalent for ALL intents and purposes to ZERO.
The recommendation of HRP was this: “At a minimum, one additional monitoring well is needed for the southern portion of the site near the former dry cleaning operation to provide an adequate monitoring network. Please note that this well will likely be installed in bedrock, based on the shallow refusals encountered in this area during the Phase II investigation.”
In August and September of 2010 (while still leasing the property, before buying it under the Transfer Act) I contracted with HRP and paid them $6300 to drill several wells to fulfill this recommendation. They were able to drill several wells but according to their estimation the one needed could not be drilled. Several months later they quoted me over $17,000 to drill this one well because, they stated, it had to be drilled inside the basement with little overhead clearance.
HRP Associates completed for me Phase III and Phase IV plus the ECAF for the Transfer Act. There are several documents that are mostly prepared but they were unable to finish due to the fact that no work was done, but those documents may be helpful to complete the work.
The most important issue of inquiry is whether or not this well must be drilled at all, and if it does need to be drilled, does it need to be drilled as HRP insists, inside my basement?
There was also lead found in a single boring into the parking lot, nothing to do with dry cleaning. It came from fill Gene Luciano bought from the Town of Torrington when the building was built in the 1950s. After quotes as high as $94,000 to remediate the entire parking lot, I decided on a plan to remediate a 6 x 6 foot square where the sample had been found. I would provide the labor and HRP Associates would send someone to oversee the work and for this I gave them an $8,000 retainer toward an estimated $12,000 bill.
While preparing to remediate the lead with men and shovels under my employ, HRP provided to me a form letter to send to all adjacent property owners to notify them of the remediation work and ask them if they had well water on their property. There is a water well about 250 meters uphill from this property and therefore all work had to stop and I was required by law (according to HRP) to notify the DEEP that I am a “Significant Environmental Hazard”. The DEEP says I may now be required to do more or different work. As the owner of the well is a friend of mine he shared the information that nothing was found in the well after testing by the DEEP last year.
This seems Kafkaesque. 2005 levels of a chemical found in the soil under the basement of the building, a chemical that hasn’t been on this property in over 20 years makes this property a hazard today to a fresh water well uphill when water samples downstream tested clean even 20 years ago (2 ppb above reportable levels).
HRP also insisted that I pay $6,500 for them to “identify all properties within 500 feet of … property boundary 2) search well drilling records at the health department, CT DEEP, and Dept. of Consumer Protection to identify wells, 3) contact the water company to see which properties they serve, and 4) a drive-by survey.” I am not able to do such work myself since I am not licensed, and I did not hire another licensed person to do the work since the companies I contacted insisted they would need to re-perform all the background work and not rely on the work of another Licensed Environmental Professional, HRP Associates. These companies warned that they may find some new problem they would have to address once they began work.
No work was performed and in March of 2015 HRP Associates terminated services with me, sending me fraudulent invoices for services not rendered. I sued for the return of my $8,000 retainer in Superior Court, which forced me into Arbitration and most of my money was returned to me in November of 2016.
So I am in need of help to fulfill the requirements of the Transfer Act. The information below may be helpful in deciding how to proceed to terminate my responsibilities and finish the work that needs to be done.
EXCERPTS [direct quotes from the Reports except brackets mine]:
From December 9, 2005 Phase I Report (62 Pages).
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Conclusions: The DEP indicated in the memo that the identified chlorinated VOC [volatile organic compounds] groundwater contamination is presumably from Luciano’s Cleaners, the subject site. PCE levels up to 27 parts per billion (ppb) [25 ppb is the “reporting Level, anything below that level need not be reported] and TCE levels up to 6.5 ppb were detected on the East Wall Gulf Station property. A DEP Memo dated January 10, 1994 suggests that chlorinated VOC contamination detected on this property is presumably from Luciano’s Cleaners, the subject site.
Water samples taken by Harwinton Drilling on 1/29/93 only showed very levels of hydrocarbons in monitoring well#1 (See attachment #12}. The DEP’s LUST Section surveyed and sampled these wells on 10/25/93. Groundwater flow was determined to be basically parallel to the Branch River. The upgradient well (#1696} showed low levels of PCE, TCE (presumably Luciano’s Cleaners} and MTBE…
Recommendations:
- Prior to any future transfer of the property, HRP would recommend review of the “Transfer Act” by appropriate environmental legal counsel as it applies to the subject site, to determine the necessary filings pursuant to the Connecticut Transfer Act.
Given the recognized environmental conditions identified for the site (Conclusion #6), HRP recommends that a subsurface investigation be completed at the subject property. Such an investigation should include the installation of test borings and groundwater monitoring wells in the areas of concern, with follow-up analysis of selected soil and groundwater samples from these areas. The purpose of the proposed investigations is to determine whether or not a petroleum or chemical release has occurred at the site due to historical activities and operations.
Pending the results of these investigations, if evidence of contamination is identified in the subsurface, then HRP would make recommendations for additional site characterization and/or remediation, as necessary.
[From January 24, 2006 Phase II Report (75 pages)]
Conclusions: Five sub-slab borings and nine exterior test borings were installed on site to investigate the potential release areas. A total of sixty-three (63) soil samples were collected and field screened. As a result of this evaluation, thirteen (13) soil samples were selected for laboratory submission for analysis of selected parameters.
A mass lead concentration exceeding the residential direct exposure criteria was detected in one shallow soil sample collected from test boring TB-7 at a depth of 0.2′-2′ below grade. The elevated lead in this sample is interpreted to be related to the urban fill soils containing a trace of coal/ash that were encountered in this boring from below the asphalt to a total depth of 3 feet below grade. No other CT RSR exceedances were exceeded in any of the analyzed soil samples.
Low levels of CT ETPH and PAHs were detected in selected soil samples, well below CT RSR criteria. Low levels of tetrachloroethylene (a.k.a., “perc”), were detected in shallow soil samples collected from borings HS-01, HS-05, and TB-2.
Three (3) ground water monitoring wells were installed in the overburden aquifer on the subject site. Ground water samples were collected from the three wells and were analyzed for volatile organic compounds.
Low levels of various chlorinated volatile organic compounds were detected in these ground water samples. These compounds included tetrachloroethylene (a.k.a., “perc”), cis- 1,2- dichloroethylene, and trichloroethylene. All VOC levels are below applicable CT RSR criteria. [This passage is misleading since only tetrachloroethylene was detected at reportable levels].
Based on January 11, 2006 survey event and regional topography, ground water in the shallow overburden aquifer beneath the site is interpreted to flow generally to the northwest and west toward the East Branch of the Naugatuck River.
Recommendations: Based upon the results of the subsurface investigations as described in this report, HRP has the following recommendations for additional investigations at the subject site:
Given that the complete vertical and horizontal distribution of site soils with mass lead contamination exceeding applicable CT RSR criteria has not been fully delineated, HRP recommends additional subsurface investigations at the site. The soil investigations would mainly focus on evaluating the degree and extent of contaminated soil in the area of test boring TB-7. At the conclusion of the degree and extent investigations, HRP will make recommendations for appropriately addressing/handling the contaminated soil. Such recommendations would take into account the proposed future use of the site and the various means of compliance outlined in the Connecticut Remediation Standard Regulations, as possible.
One possible remediation scenario would be the excavation and appropriate off-site disposal at an approved facility of shallow contaminated soils exceeding applicable CT RSR direct exposure criteria (DEC) standards. Following site remediation, at least two years of post-remediation monitoring would also be required to achieve compliance. Note that other remediation alternatives may exist for the site, the feasibility of which would be examined at the conclusion of the recommended degree and extent investigations.
Additional ground water monitoring should be completed at the site to confirm the results of the initial event. Also, further evaluation of site ground water needs to be completed based on the detection of tetrachloroethylene and other chlorinated VOCs [what other VOCs?] in the three site monitoring wells. At a minimum, one additional monitoring well is needed for the southern portion of the site near the former dry cleaning operation to provide an adequate monitoring network. Please note that this well will likely be installed in ·bedrock, based on the shallow refusals encountered in this area during the Phase II investigation. The recommended ground water monitoring should include collection of ground water samples from the three existing site wells and at least one additional well, and laboratory analyses of volatile organic compounds and lead.
Here end the excerpts.
The owner, Eugene Luciano died in February of 2010. Gene was a genuine hero of World War II and had the medals to prove it. He wrote a book which he gave away to all who wanted it and signed my copy for me. At the end of the war in Germany he and three other Americans brought in several dozen prisoners without firing a shot. He told me they had been trying to get the guys to surrender for days and the three of them had gone out scouting behind the German position. All of a sudden they found themselves facing the backs of about 50 guys all armed pointing the other way, at the American position.
Gene said he doesn’t know what got into him, and he doesn’t even know what the other two Americans were doing, but Gene yelled in German a phrase that meant surrender, put down your weapons, and the Germans did it. The three of them marched the Germans to the American position.
Gene was a pip, a little guy. He bought this location after the great Flood of 1955. It was one of the oldest houses in Torrington, on the maps from the early 1800s. Gene said it was a roadside rest stop for people traveling from Hartford to Albany, which it very well might have been according to the Torrington Historical Society. Gene was born in the house next door, which is now a four family apartment building, built in 1900 or so like so many houses in Torrington. Gene was born to a large family and did not have anything good to say about his father, who owned the house until he died.
Behind his father’s house was a garage that was lost in the flood. Gene used to clean carpets in that garage, but after the flood he needed to find a new location for his rug cleaning so he borrowed money from his wife’s family and bought this historic landmark. He jacked it up eight feet, added a basement, two car garage and tripled the size of the house with the dry cleaning shop add-on. He paved nearly every square inch of the property that was not inside. Three quarters of the property now is the old cleaners and I live in the apartment, the original 2 story house. The original beams are visible from the basement, some of them 18 inches square and hand hewn.
Gene struggled with the Act when he wanted to sell his property. He paid HRP Associates LLC, a major player in this sad story, $20,000. I will always remember Gene telling me about them with these words: “That’s how they fucked me, Kent”. He said it nearly every time he spoke on the subject. He so regretted ever letting them near his property for testing. Gene did not realize he didn’t have any choice, of course. He saw it all as a scam, which in a way it is.
He paid HRP thinking they would prove what he knew to be true, that the property was not contaminated. Gene would tell stories about how careful he was, how his brother who worked in cleaning at a different Torrington location had died from exposure to Perc. Perc is what people in the industry call the dry cleaning chemical that he could always smell it on his brother. Gene was careful not to mis-handle Perc, he said.
When he wanted to sell the property I believe Gene just felt rich. It is a nice property in what he considered to be a prosperous area of downtown, worth a lot of money. He certainly asked for a lot of money. David Dean was his Real Estate Agent, and Gene told me David Dean was the one who talked him into hiring HRP and get started on the Transfer Act to sell the property. So HRP did testing and prepared the Phase I reports required by the Transfer Act.
As you may have guessed by now HRP found some problems when they tested the property, and they could not let the property be transferred without a lot more testing, and more reports. The recommendations from the $20,000 Phase I report of course required more testing and Gene was quoted about $130,000 with no guarantees that would take care of the problems. No wonder he felt “fucked”.
While this was going on about 2003 Gene had another company remove the old underground oil tank so it didn’t pollute the ground in the future if it rusted out. I once was talking to Scot of HRP and he pointed to the patch in the asphalt where the tank had been and referred to it as though he had removed the tank. I said I had new respect for HRP since they had done so within the $20,000 Gene had paid. Scot nodded, taking responsibility, but now, with more experience and having been through all the documents and bills, HRP had recommended the removal of the tank but Gene had paid another company to remove it.
