EPA sues New Castle salvage yard operator in latest chapter of Delaware's industrial legacy

The federal government is suing an ornery New Castle septuagenarian over what it says is his refusal to comply with a legal order to protect one of Delaware's oldest Superfund sites.

Regulators say in court documents that damage to a protective landfill cap at the site has implications for the safety of the Army Creek Watershed — and the thousands of people who live between Old New Castle and Red Lion. 

A former industrial waste dump, now called the Delaware Sand and Gravel Superfund Site, sits near the southern banks of Army Creek and just a half-mile from an Artesian Resources water tap.

The owner of the land, Vincent DellAversano, 78, rejects federal government claims that his salvage yard operations are damaging past cleanup efforts at the site. He said the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has been bullying him, "a little guy," for years, while capitulating to big business.

“How do they resolve this? They leave me the hell alone,” he said, in his combative tone.

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DellAversano lives in a house next to his salvage yard at the end of a row of industrial buildings on Grantham Lane. 

Almost daily, the landowner with a long, gray scraggly beard and hands that bear signs of a lifetime of manual labor tends to rusting cars, RVs and engine blocks scattered throughout his New Castle yard. Cars are more a passion than a business, he said.

His yard sits atop a buried and capped off industrial landfill – one that a generation ago took in waste from the state's largest employers, including DuPont, Chrysler, General Motors, Hercules, ICI Americas and Occidental Chemical Corp.

Between 1959 and 1976, DellAversano and his family sold dump space to the companies that deposited more than 13,000 drums containing hazardous substances within four distinct disposal areas at the site, according to the EPA.

After the companies were sued by the federal government in the early 1990s, they settled on a multimillion-dollar cleanup plan, which was to be managed by a trust. 

Members of the trust did not reply to a request for comment by press time.

The U.S. Justice Department at the time called pollution at the landfill a "who's who of hazardous substances, including benzene, arsenic and other carcinogens."

Today, DellAversano doesn’t pay much attention to the industrial waste that lies under 2 feet of rocky fill beneath his scrap vehicles. Yet, every so often, site inspectors from the EPA remind him of it.

They say DellAversano is not complying with deed restrictions outlined in a “unilateral” administrative order, issued in 2004, for the Superfund site. It mandates that he not damage the protective rocky cap, entombing part of the former landfill, and that he submit regular reports to the EPA about its condition.

In past years, when EPA officials asked him if he will comply, DellAversano responded, "ain’t going to happen," according to court documents. 

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Now, after years of soft-power cajoling, the EPA is taking its fight with the landowner into its most critical chapter – filing a lawsuit in September at U.S. federal court in Wilmington.

DellAversano's inaction poses "a threat of an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health," EPA attorneys said in the civil complaint.

DellAversano, responding in an Oct. 23 filing, stated he "is without sufficient knowledge" to admit or deny the EPA's claims. 

In the legal response, DellAversano demanded a jury trial for the case, one in which he will be representing himself. He doesn’t trust lawyers, he said.

Asked whether he would settle the lawsuit, DellAversano said it would amount to handing the federal government “institutional control” of property that he has owned for decades. He should not be liable for pollution because he abided by all laws while operating the landfill, he said. 

“EPA passes rules and regulations," he said. "If tomorrow they put a traffic light down there, can they give me a ticket for last year? This is what it comes out to.”

While odds of victory are low, DellAversano says he has nothing to lose.

Despite EPA threats of fines amounting to as much as $54,789 a day, his only seizable asset is the land, and DellAversano is betting that the federal government doesn’t want the headache of owning a Superfund site, he said.

“I’m only 78, so they’re going to have to put up with me a few more years,” he said. “And, I’m not sitting here every quarter or every half a year, writing out exactly how many cars I got."

The EPA did not respond by press time to a series of questions posed by The News Journal.

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The dispute

Generations ago, the 27-acre Superfund site was a sand and gravel quarry. In the 1950s, it was converted into an industrial waste landfill, operated by DellAversano.

It sat across Army Creek from a separate county-run landfill. Today, both shuttered facilities are Superfund sites. 

The federal Superfund program directs taxpayers dollars to the cleanup of the country's most polluted areas. 

During the landfill's existence, Delaware industry dumped about 555,000 cubic yards of waste there, including the 13,000 drums of hazardous substances, according to the EPA.

Landfill workers at the time would puncture drums and allow the liquid to drain into the ground, then crush the containers to reduce the volume of waste, according to records.

Emergency action to protect the area first was taken in the 1970s by the state.

In 1984, the EPA removed more than 1,600 contaminated drums they believed to pose an immediate threat to the environment, according to federal reports. Decontamination of the groundwater also began around the time, sparked by a separate settlement with the Army Creek Superfund Site at the former county-run landfill.

The 1995 federal lawsuit against the 31 companies that had dumped hazardous waste at DellAversano's landfill resulted in a $40 million jolt to cleanup efforts.

"Today's settlement is a double dose of good news to the people of Delaware and all taxpayers," said EPA attorney Lois J. Schiffer at the time.  "A terribly contaminated site will be cleaned up – and the cleanup will be paid for by the companies that used it."

The cleanup plan was straightforward. An enclosure with a slurry wall containment system would be constructed around the area of the landfill where drums of toxic chemicals had been dumped

For the adjacent area where the salvage yard now sits, a landfill cap was to be built with reinforced stone so that DellAversano could continue his operations.

DellAversano, while not part of the settlements, requested the cap to be stout enough to withstand the weight of a forklift carrying a school bus, he said.

“They kept wanting me to sign off on what they’re going to do," he said. "I said here’s what I got. I got an Army forklift that weighs 8 tons. I have school buses in here. I want to be able to pick that school bus up that weighs 8 tons and drive across this cap.”

In its lawsuit, the EPA says his vehicles in the yard today are too heavy for the rocky cap that was constructed. Waste oil from others also is seeping into the ground, causing it damage, the lawsuit states.

DellAversano says his vehicles' weights comply with the original specifications of the cap. 

He also disagrees with the EPA on the nature of the waste under the salvage yard. The EPA in documents says the area is tainted with hazardous materials. DellAversano said the area consists of "dry" waste. 

“This here was where General Motors dumped their cardboard. Electric Hose and Rubber dumped all their remnants, their wire that they used to make their hydraulic hoses," he said. “My landfill consists of separate areas; we separated our trash." 

He said the feds’ focus on his salvage yard is wrongheaded because it is the adjacent chemical drum disposal site where truly dangerous contamination lies.

“We don’t see any contamination in this inert area, and that’s where I’m running my salvage yard,” he said.

Well water safety

Northern Delaware in past decades was home to some of the worst chemical dumping grounds in America. Regulators used to claim that deep clay layers above the aquifer protected water from the foul discharges by chemical and petroleum manufacturers.

More recent science, however, has demonstrated the theory to be wrong. The protective layer over the aquifer, scientists now say, is full of holes.

That has meant a vigilant filtering regime for Artesian Resources Corp., said Joseph A. DiNunzio, executive vice president at the water company.

"If something is found, we will take the necessary actions right away, but what we don't want is to be forced to find it and shut down the well field," he said. "We insist that actions be taken so that things do not reach us, or if they're going to reach our well field, we know well enough in advance what treatment we need and have it installed beforehand."

Its well field in Llangollen Estates neighborhood, about a half mile from the Delaware Sand and Gravel Superfund site, serves about 5,000 residential customers.

In 1971, groundwater contamination of benzene and other chemicals that had migrated from the landfill were discovered at the residential well, according to the EPA. 

Then, in 2000, a toxic solvent called BCEE turned up there – and also was attributed to migration from the landfill. The chemical, now completely removed from Artesian's finished water by expensive carbon filters, can cause lung and skin irritations.

Its discovery triggered a brief state health agency warning to avoid drinking water in nearby neighborhoods, and it prompted Artesian to drain a storage tank near New Castle Airport.

Since then, DiNunzio said, his company has established a closer working relationship with the EPA and with the trust that is overseeing the Delaware Sand and Gravel site.

"That has placed us in that position so we don't repeat the kind of circumstances that happened," he said.

In 2014, Artesian, which has $467 million in total assets, spent an additional $4 million in pollutant removing filters for the Llangollen well. 

Asked if he believes the cleanup at the Delaware Sand and Gravel Superfund site has been sufficient, DiNunzio said, "Today, I feel people are taking their best efforts."

DiNunzio declined to comment on the EPA lawsuit with DellAversano.

"As long as (the EPA is) doing what they think is necessary, we should be protected," he said.

In 2016, the EPA proposed a new remediation plan to address "ongoing threats" from the Superfund site. While details are not publicly available, costs estimated at $43 million will be paid by the companies that had dumped waste at the site.

Laura Brown, president of the Llangollen Estates civic association, said pollution in the aquifer has been an ongoing concern in the neighborhood for more than a decade. It contrasts with her childhood, nearly 50 years ago, she said, when her Philadelphia grandparents would collect water in the area to bring back to their home.  

While Brown didn't know details about the latest developments at the neighboring Superfund site, she said, "If there is a problem, I want them to find it." 

"Unfortunately in business, some things can get over people's heads and other people can get hurt," she said. 

Contact Karl Baker at kbaker@delawareonline.com or (302) 324-2329. Follow him on Twitter @kbaker6.