A trivial illegal dumping incident triggered discovery of a major water contamination case
Evidence
The Woburn police were summoned in the spring of 1979 to investigate the appearance of 184 barrels of industrial waste on a plot of vacant land in northeast Woburn. The person responsible for dumping the barrels in Woburn, the so-called midnight dumper, was never caught, and the barrels were taken away before their contents could cause any harm. The whole event would have been inconsequential had it not been for the vigilance of the state environmental inspector who handled the case. He thought it prudent to test samples of water from Wells G and H, which lay just a half mile to the south. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 131
Categorization
- CANDY: 184 abandoned barrels, an uncatchable ‘midnight dumper,’ and one alert inspector who happened to test the right wells.
- QUESTION: Who actually dumped the barrels, and was the dumping itself ever tied to the contamination that later emerged in the aquifer?
- XREF: connects to: Proving liability requires tracing contaminants through groundwater to their destination — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 994; Contaminated tap water corrodes metal plumbing and appliances. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 62; Community belief in contaminated water attaches to whoever was responsible for it — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action , 2095 (+5 more)
Broader Connections
- Unscrupulous septic haulers dumped hundreds of millions of gallons of sludge illegally
#expands(0.95) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 430 - Regulatory reclassification of radioactive waste allowed unregulated disposal that contaminated groundwater
#exemplifies(0.95) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2690 - Communities learned of an existing dump only years later through news of its fines
#complicates(0.85) — Luke W. Cole and Sheila R. Foster, From the Ground Up, 56 - Industrial waste pits can contaminate drinking water wells with carcinogens.
#corroborates(0.80) — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 144 - Groundwater contamination was reframed as a conservation problem in the early 1960s
#complicates(0.75) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 409