Groundwater may be threatened

By JOSEPH R. LaPLANTE, Valley Breeze & Observer Managing Editor

NORTH PROVIDENCE - The Department of Environmental Management suspects that the groundwater at the Notarantonio property at Douglas and Mineral Spring avenues has been contaminated throughout several decades by leaking underground storage tanks and could ask the developer of a Lowe's Home Improvement Store, set for the site, to sink monitoring wells, according to an agency official.

Seven tanks - steel, single wall, some 30 or more years old - were "in poor shape with holes" when they were excavated earlier this year, requiring the removal of 251 tons of "contaminated soil," Sofia Kaczor, a senior environmental scientist in DEM's Leaking Underground Storage Tanks Management office, told The Breeze on Friday, Aug. 1.

"A lot of these tanks are still in residential use," Kaczor said. Environmental standards are stricter now in the design of underground storage tanks, she said.

"There may be impacts to the groundwater," Kaczor said. "We may ask them to install test wells" as a means to determine if the groundwater is contaminated and to what extent.

This is the second instance of contaminated soil found at the commercial site.

Earlier this summer, an investigation of the soil at the site found unsafe levels of several toxins, DEM said.

Arsenic, lead, total petroleum hydrocarbons and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons "at levels above what is acceptable," have been found in the soil.

The tanks excavated in the site preparation were used for various purposes by the car dealerships that were located on the site for more than 50 years, first Notarantonio Ford and more recently Rizzo Ford. The buildings that housed the businesses have all been razed in preparation for construction of the Lowe's store.

Three of the tanks - two were 1,000 gallons and one was 2,000 gallons in size - that were located behind the dealership contained waste oil. Several hundred gallons of sludge were removed when they were excavated on March 6, Kaczor said.

Two gasoline tanks - one 3,500 gallons and the other 750 gallons - were removed on March 26 on land near the intersection of Mineral Spring and Douglas Avenues. Kaczor said.

Two fuel oil tanks - 1,000 gallons and 500 gallons in size - were removed from land at the location of the former Notarantonio building at the intersection. The larger of the two was excavated on March 26, and the smaller, which was beneath the basement of the house, on April 18, Kaczor said.

The tank that was buried under a concrete base beneath the house was the only one that did not contaminate soil, Kaczor said.

"We will request a site investigation report," she told the newspaper. "There may still be some contaminated soil there."

Kaczor said that the exact age of the tanks is unknown, but that state records show that a 3,000 gallon gasoline tank, along with a waste oil tank, were removed from the property in 1999.