Battle over contamination at Watchtower site in Warwick

[Dustparticle]

http://m.recordonline.com/article/20151214/NEWS/151219671

[Old]

Watchtower is seeking unspecified reimbursement for the cost it has incurred in the cleanup and remediation. It is also seeking damages, restitution and attorney fees.

 

Interesting, but standard procedure when undeclared toxic material is found on a construction site.

I am curious as to the costs incurred to rectify the problem.

This could add millions of dollars to costs if not supported by the court.

[Dustparticle]

Watchtower is seeking unspecified reimbursement for the cost it has incurred in the cleanup and remediation. It is also seeking damages, restitution and attorney fees.

 

Interesting, but standard procedure when undeclared toxic material is found on a construction site.

I am curious as to the costs incurred to rectify the problem.

This could add millions of dollars to costs if not supported by the court.

I wonder how many millions?

[Greg Dent]

Sorry more like billions of dollars. The brothers would not be able to remove this themselves. An outside contractor would have to be brought in for this. It will cost a lot more that we think. The costs to treat or dispose of it safely will be what most of it will be for.

Edited December 16, 2015 by Greg Dent

[Old]

Sorry more like billions of dollars. The brothers would not be able to remove this themselves. An outside contractor would have to be brought in for this. It will cost a lot more that we think. The costs to treat or dispose of it safely will be what most of it will be for.

Read the fine print,

Per the article, "Warwick Supervisor Mike Sweeton said the site has been cleaned as part of the approval process." 

Cleanup is completed

[Dustparticle]

There things I'm wondering: Who knew what? The land was own by a college. Did they knew it contaminated? Did others think that the WTBS was just going to buy the land and build something not big on it? It seems the more they dig deep, the more they saw.

[pnutts]

INCO research branch built the facility. You wouldn't think a research facility could produce that much undeclared toxic waste.

 

INCO mines in Sudbury, ON is a different story. Decades ago before making higher smoke stacks ( to export pollution far away ),

the area around Sudbury was used by NASA to simulate Moon Landings, since it was so desolate and dead looking.

 

INCO = International Nickel Company

Edited December 19, 2015 by pnutts

[MzT]

Actually this doesn't surprise me (the contamination). There was a Ford plant just a few miles away on the NJ side that was the site of a huge contamination lawsuit. They were illegally burying chemical waste and there was a lot of speculation regarding how far they went with the scheme.

Not saying that these cases are related. Just that the area has a number of untouched, unused land which has had issues as people and companies decide to try to build there in recent years.

[Stavro]

In my area there's a field that was used in the 1940s for ordnance disposal, then a few decades later it was covered over and sold off to be used as farm land. Once the farmer started plowing up explosives, the government had to step in for some heavy-duty cleanup.

 

Next door to my hall was an agricultural chemical company that was apparently burying toxic waste on their land, only ~50 feet from our well. After a hefty class-action lawsuit by the neighbors (the Kingdom Hall included) the company ended up paying out a fairly large settlement to all the neighbors, and the cleanup is still ongoing after 20 years. Our hall still has to use bottled water and put up warning signs to not drink the tap water.

 

This sort of contamination isn't uncommon at all, but it goes largely unnoticed when the adjacent land goes unused, and the vast majority of contamination sites aren't large enough to be newsworthy.

[Old]

In my area there's a field that was used in the 1940s for ordnance disposal, then a few decades later it was covered over and sold off to be used as farm land. Once the farmer started plowing up explosives, the government had to step in for some heavy-duty cleanup.

 

Next door to my hall was an agricultural chemical company that was apparently burying toxic waste on their land, only ~50 feet from our well. After a hefty class-action lawsuit by the neighbors (the Kingdom Hall included) the company ended up paying out a fairly large settlement to all the neighbors, and the cleanup is still ongoing after 20 years. Our hall still has to use bottled water and put up warning signs to not drink the tap water.

 

This sort of contamination isn't uncommon at all, but it goes largely unnoticed when the adjacent land goes unused, and the vast majority of contamination sites aren't large enough to be newsworthy.

I built a warehouse on and old army depot site. While trenching we dug up a hand grenade with the pin rusted out. Shut down the work within 200 ft, waited four hours for the King County Sherriff's disposal squad to show up to declare it was a practice grenade. I suspicioned as much as there was some remaining blue paint on it, but as superintendent I didn't want to risk it, I was still being sued over the Kingdome debacle. made me mad when the deputy claimed it as evidence(?). Oh well who needs a hand genade.!