Hibner said the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality,
along with city officials, will discuss short-term cleanup and the
long-term effects on Wingfield Pointe homes at a meeting with the
residents Wednesday evening.
Local, state and federal officials have declined to be specific in
describing what they found in the barrels. Hibner would only say Friday
that the liquid collected from one or more drums found buried in the back
yard of a home on Bluewing Lane on Tuesday was petroleum-based, as
previously reported.
More information will be released Wednesday by the EPA and DEQ, he
said.
“We have
just reams of rough data,” Hibner said. “They are going to do an analysis
of it and tell us what that mean.”
City officials did not elaborate on what the long-term effect might be
on the neighborhood, saying state and federal officials will discuss that
with residents next week.
Wingfield Pointe has been the subject of an investigation by local,
state and federal environmental officials since Jan. 11, when 20 to 30
barrels were found buried three to four feet underground by workers
installing a backyard swimming pool.
In the days that followed, many residents said they were surprised to
learn that their subdivision was built partly atop an old dump. Jack Kelly
, EPA’s on-scene coordinator, confirmed Friday that the agency didn’t find
contamination to cause “any great concerns.”
Citing interviews with the pool contractor, Kelly said the cluster of
metal barrels “was for the most part crushed and empty. Some, though, were
about a quarter full of liquid.” He said the liquid smelled like a solvent
of some sort, and that the chemicals identified in the drums also point to
the wastes being a solvent.
The soil around the drums did not show much leakage, Kelly said, but
the drums were very rusted and riddled with holes.
“Based on soil tests, it would not be hazardous waste, in my opinion,”
Kelly said. However, he said Virginia keeps a separate category for
“special wastes,” one step below hazardous wastes, that likely would
require the soil and drums to be disposed of through a contractor that
normally deals with hazardous debris.
Kelly said he has seen many waste sites around the mid-Atlantic region.
This one, he said, was different because “anytime something’s found in
someone’s back yard, it pricks up our ears, you want to be careful.”
The federal government will assist in the next stage of the cleanup, if
requested, Kelly said. That will include excavating and removing the
drums, sampling the soil and groundwater beneath them, and safely
disposing of the wastes. It was unclear who would pay for that work, as
negotiations continue with the homeowner’s insurance company, he said. The
EPA could pay the bill but would then attempt to discover who dumped the
drums in the back yard, in hope of recovering the costs from them.
City Attorney Ronald S. Hallman also defended the city’s approval of
the subdivision, repeating Friday that city was not liable for the
landfill issues.
A key stipulation in the city’s approval of a subdivision plan for
Wingfield Pointe was that the developer, William T. Wingfield, agreed to
provide each buyer of a home site with a “Buyer’s Awareness Package,”
pointing out the land’s history as a landfill.
Hallman said he hasn’t seen such a package and city records don’t say
what the package might contain.
None of the residents contacted in the past week said they received any
such notice.
Hallman said he talked to developer on Friday and that Wingfield
reiterated that he informed the first buyers about the landfill.
Wingfield did not provide names of homeowners nor did Hallman ask for
any names, the city attorney said. Hallman said he has not talked to
subdivision residents.
He said the old landfill was also noted in land records.
The plat, recorded in 1990 in the Circuit Court Clerk’s Office,
contains a meandering line with the inscription “limit of previous
landfill site,” affecting 13 of the subdivision’s 68 lots.
A title examiner, usually the closing lawyer, would be responsible for
reviewing the plat and informing the homeowner about the dump, Hallman
said.
“In my opinion this would be sufficient notice,” Hallman said.
Hallman also disputed a former city employee’s contention that there
was no enforcement of developer’s promises to the Planning Commission
before the mid-1990s.
Carl Hall, Chesapeake’s director of inspections from 1988 to 2002, said
he started the mechanism meant to enforce such requirements. But Hallman
produced a 1989 memo that sets such mechanisms.
City officials said they weren’t aware if other Wingfield Pointes loom
in other parts of the city, and it is the first time Chesapeake had to
conduct such reviews.
The case is also an open criminal investigation now, which is a normal
procedure, said Hibner, the fire marshal.
“We are just trying to figure out how they got there and what’s there,”
he said, referring to the drums. “You couldn’t bury that today.”
Reach Claudia Assis at 222-5207 or at claudia.assis@pilotonline.com