Contaminated Fill

The soil we see around our house has a past. Sometimes if we look into that history, it would tell us things we may not want to hear, but it could save us from major health problems later. 

 

One of the first steps in any construction project is to make sure there is a nice base to build upon. Sometimes that means needing to bring in fill and other material from someplace else. This is an expense the developers have to add to their costs unless they are able to get the fill for free or perhaps even have somebody pay them for allowing fill to be dumped at their construction site. This sounds too good to be true. How could it be possible for the developer to get fill for free or get paid for fill? 

 

The answer to that question really depends on why the fill is needed at the site. If all they are going to do with the material is dump it into a large area to fill in a hole, then some old demolition debris would work fine. If some roadway was torn up recently, the old concrete and asphalt would be fine to use as fill. They could most likely get that for free. Maybe a very large office complex is being built nearby and there was a lot of extra dirt from preparing the site that is not needed. That could also be used on the site. 

 

In the construction industry, it is not unusual for waste from somewhere else to be used as fill for some needed purpose on another project. Part of it is always about the expense of disposal, but part is the fact that there is nothing wrong with reusing old concrete or debris from  a demolished building, for example, as fill. Some construction debris landfills have equipment to break up materials so they can be more easily used as fill by contractors. When clean fill is used, all is good. 

 

There may be small differences between towns and even different states as to what exactly clean fill is. The generally accepted definition is uncontaminated material including rock, soil, used asphalt, and construction or demolition debris such as concrete or bricks. Depending on the construction manager, testing may be required to confirm the fill is indeed clean and not contaminated with substances or materials that create a liability later on. 

 

Then there is the other type of fill: contaminated fill. This may contain almost anything. Old insulation, household trash, chunks of metal and wood, cardboard, plastic, dry wall, dirt removed from other sites, and hazardous substances of every type imaginable. Many neighborhoods and homes were constructed using contaminated fill. Some of the people did not know the fill contained harmful substances, but others did. 

 

There is an entire industry that has grown up around providing fill. Some are simply brokers who find it at one place and sell it for a profit at another. However, there are the shady opportunists who operate a business making big dollars disposing of contaminated fill by passing it off as clean fill. Toxic dirt brokers look for opportunities to pose as legitimate contaminated soil removal businesses. They get paid large sums to take away the dirt under the guise they will dispose of it according to environmental regulations. Many times, the dirt may not even make it off the back of a dump truck before it gets sold and dumped at some unsuspecting construction site and passed off as clean fill. Where there are millions of dollars to be made and low risk at getting caught, many disreputable businesses will be born. 

 

Unfortunately, there are way too many people who put profit above people. Tony and I thought we had seen most of the ways unscrupulous people dispose of hazardous waste, but we were mistaken. We do believe that honest mistakes are made sometimes. We also believe there are instances somebody truly has no knowledge about something and, therefore, is not purposely doing something that they know will cause harm. Sometimes, though, people are responsible for doing something so outrageous it defies explanation of how they could be so cruel. 

 

To combat these opportunists, many states are passing bills meant to stem the disposal of contaminated fill. New Jersey recently passed theirs after state hearings found the problem found the practice to be a bigger problem than ever expected. In 2019, one of these dirty soil brokers was sentenced to a mere 90 days in court for dumping contaminated soil for over eight years at sites across the state. The contamination included the pesticide chlordane, chemicals from petroleum products, and PCBs. Only be a fraction of the sites the convicted soil broker  dumped the waste at may be known; the others are still sitting poisoning the unsuspecting property owners and occupants. 

 

Because the practice of selling and using contaminated fill is rampant, the examples we have here are a small cross sample of the different ways contaminated fill gets used. 

 

In New York City and in New Jersey, hearings and an investigation into soil brokers found an entire industry making millions in the toxic dirt trade. In one example contaminated soil was removed from projects in New York City and sent over to New Jersey, supposedly for cleaning. The same toxic dirt was sent back to New York City and used at other construction projects. 

 

Contaminated dirt disguised as legitimate fill is nothing new. Disposing of highly toxic and contaminated soil has been going on for decades. No place is exempt either. Sometimes the toxic secret stays buried until a lucky accident causes it to be exposed, such was the case at Greenwich High School in Greenwich, Connecticut, one of the most fanciest and most expensive towns in the entire country. Back in the 1970s, more than 28,000 tons of fill dirt containing PCBs, arsenic, lead, chromium, and other toxins were dumped to build athletic fields. For years, school children played and rolled on top of this mound of toxic chemicals unaware of what lay below the surface.

 

The worst part of this is, the town was told at a public meeting at the same time the fill was dumped that it was old incinerator ash and power plant coal ash. Eyewitnesses reported recently they saw all the black sludge ash dumped and reported it but that nothing was done at the time. The fill was just covered over and used. It is currently unknown if the exposure and contact with the PCBs and other toxic chemicals can directly be tied to any illnesses and diseases the people who were exposed experienced. One fact is certain though, the investigation into how this happened and went undetected for decades will continue as will the confirmation of medical issues due to this horrible example of neglect and disregard for people over profit. 

 

In Florida, the location currently being considered as a site to build a one billion dollar soccer stadium and shopping center involving David Beckham, was suddenly shut down in mid-2019. The site was an existing golf course that was operating for years. While many old golf courses are known to have issues with arsenic and other toxins from years of pesticide applications, this golf course was also built on top of a dump containing tons of old incinerator ash. The local government says they are working to clean up the locations that are heavily contaminated. Their plan is to cover them up with topsoil only where needed, and not remove the toxic contaminants. Since the officials say it was typical to use incinerator fill back in the 1970s for construction projects, there are parks and other public areas that have this arsenic and lead contaminated soil too. Regulators with the county and environmental health departments acknowledge they have no idea how many other polluted locations may be out there waiting to accidentally be discovered. 

 

On Long Island, a toxic fill dirt ring was broken up in 2018, and over 30 people were arrested. The ringleader was sentenced to two to four years in prison. The ring placed ads on Craigslist advertising free screen fill, but the trucks would dump solid waste, usually contaminated with arsenic, lead, and mercury. The homeowners were stuck with the clean-up bill while the toxic dirt dumpers made money from finding places to illegally dispose of the toxic fill. 

 

In Pennsylvania, the Department of Environmental Protection found haulers from out of state were trucking in contaminated soil removed from toxic sites elsewhere. Over sixteen sites were identified as having been victims of the dumping scheme. Hazardous materials ranging from petroleum-soaked soils to cancer-causing cobalt, the banned pesticides aldrin/Dieldrin, lead, and vanadium (another cancer-causing material). The DEP is warning people to be vigilant as these soil brokers are getting more brazen. 

 

In the town of Portsmouth, Virginia, homes were built on top of an area where foundry sand had been disposed of for years. Most foundry sand contains very high levels of heavy metals, including lead. By the time the magnitude of the problem was realized, many of the children in the area had high levels of lead in their blood. Before the health problems arose, the town had never done any testing on this site, and the people whose health was affected will pay for it for a long time. 

 

In 2014, a Wisconsin environmental group traced drinking water contamination to the use of coal ash as fill material. There are hundreds of school children who are not allowed to use the water in the school due to contamination. In a rural, four-county area in southeast Wisconsin, many of the homeowners have had to install costly water filtration systems or depend on bottled water for a safe supply. The wells throughout the area are pumping from aquifers where the groundwater has unsafe levels of molybdenum in it. This toxic metal is found in coal ash, now known to have been extensively dumped throughout the area as fill. Almost 1,000 wells were tested, and, of those, forty five percent had levels of the metal at high or very high levels.

 

In several neighborhoods in North Birmingham, Alabama, people had a flooding problem. When there would be heavy rains, the streets and all around their homes would flood. The solution the local government came up with was to bring in fill dirt and use it to reduce the levels of flooding. There were some nearby industrial facilities where the fill was obtained for use around some homes as well as some future developments. Unfortunately for the people living there, the fill was contaminated with industrial chemicals, including lead and arsenic. Every time it rained, toxic chemicals spread all over the area. It took years of fighting, but finally the government declared these neighborhoods, which people had been living in for years, a Superfund site. 

 

In Davidson, North Carolina, asbestos was found in a local park. Previously, a factory that manufactured asbestos products was located nearby. Town officials have said this now-closed factory created health and environmental problems in the nearby neighborhood for years. People in the area of the factory used its soil as fill dirt for all sorts of projects. The EPA tested the soil in 77 of those properties surrounding the factory, and 32 of them had asbestos levels so high it required removing more than 6,000 tons of contaminated fill. 

 

In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, back in the 1970s there was a big plan to build a housing community in an available marshy area of the city. The original plan was to develop 12,500 homes. The old city landfill was the closest neighbor. Because the land for the housing was a marsh, fill needed to be brought in to build up the area. Fifteen million cubic yards of fill dirt was brought in for the project along with contaminated material from the landfill. All of this was spread out and used as soil for the neighborhoods. Of the original plan, only 4,200 of the homes were ever built. 

 

Over the years many of the people living there became sick. Some of the original residents filed a lawsuit against the city, but it never really went anywhere. Neighbors sold their homes and moved on, and new people came to take their place. All of them had one thing in common:  the fill used on the land under their houses, in their gardens, and all over their backyards was heavily contaminated. For decades, people lived there and raised their families. Many decades later, the EPA finally investigated. Tests showed poisons such as PCBs, lead, mercury, arsenic, pesticides, and petroleum residues. Almost 200 homes needed to have the soil dug up and removed. Over 4,000 tons of PCBs and contaminated soil have been taken out, and there is still work to be done. The people who were harmed by the unknown contamination are trying to do the best they can. 

 

In Huntersville and Mooresville, North Carolina, residents in both towns share something nobody anywhere should ever have to: thyroid cancer rates far above the national average. If that was not enough, they also share clusters of ocular melanoma cancer also above national average. They also share coal ash. A troublingly long list of hazardous chemicals is in the ash. The developers of these homes in North Carolina used coal ash as free fil. And they used as much of it as possible to help the coal plant dispose of this assumedly free fill. Residents in the area tell stories of when they would plant or dig outside and a gray substance would come up from the dirt. They had no idea it was toxic and filled with hazardous chemicals. For years they played in it, ate food from their gardens that grew in it, and breathed the dust it created. Now, the people in these two towns wonder who will be the next one in their town to get sick. 

 

In Atlanta, Georgia, on the west side of town is a group of houses in a low-income neighborhood. They just discovered the soil around their houses is contaminated with high levels of lead. Many of these homes have young children, for whom lead is especially hazardous to brain development. The lead was part of the byproduct from the metal smelters that used to operate in the area. A material called slag was used as fill when the area was built. Now, the people are unsure what will happen to them and their children. The EPA is looking to see if the problem can be removed. In the meantime, the neighborhood waits.

 

Contaminated fill is a big problem and is only going to get worse. Many sites where this fill was used in the past are being discovered all the time. One of the main hazardous materials allowed to pass as fill is coal ash. It is known to contain many hazardous chemicals and harmful compounds, but the EPA continues to allow its use in places where people will be in close contact with it.

 

Add in all the construction that has already taken place on top of contaminated sites where nobody ever tested, and there are plenty of potential possibilities for problems. Legislation, testing requirements and vigilance are what it will take to get control of this problem. 

 

The only known way to make sure you are not living on top of contaminated land is to have your own basic soil test done. Moreover, if you are buying fill for a project on your property, you should test that soil too. A “clean fill” sign in front of a business is not  a guarantee the material is safe. Even if the business itself is above board, because of the toxic dirt market, reputable establishments may unknowingly wind up with contaminated fill.