Past Uses

What do golf courses, old landfills, toxic waste sites, and orchards have in common? Developers seeking to make a quick dollar have built residential homes directly on top of these. In more than a few cases, the past uses of the land beneath our feet has a toxic legacy which came back to bite the people above. As way too many homeowners are finding out the hard way, what is below our houses is as important as what is in them. 

 

Many parcels of property once considered unbuildable just a few years earlier are being snapped up by developers eager to place new projects and, sometimes, residential housing on them. In several cases, the land has switched ownership multiple times, and the actual developer is claiming not to have known about the previous uses that contaminated the property. Disclosure laws requiring the selling party to share all information known about the property with prospective buyers are being skirted. Admittedly, in some cases the past uses have honestly been buried during multiple transactions leading up to the development, but in others, non-disclosure was avoided due to loopholes in enforcing the requirements.

 

As land for building new projects is becoming scarcer in suburbs and inner cities, open spaces such as golf courses and agricultural properties are giving way to residential housing. Contaminated sites such as brownfields or old industrial parks are being developed as well. As a result, many more homeowners are finding surprises from the past. Some of the most common contaminated past uses are discussed in other chapters. We do want to go a bit more in depth on a few of them here.

 

1. Agricultural Lands

 

As many urban areas spread out further for new development, pressure is mounting on any farmland left near them. In many of these areas, farmland has already shifted from growing crops to growing houses. Old fruit orchards have been razed, and housing developments have appeared with cute names like Citrus Acres and Groveland Estates. Acres of cornfields and other crops have sprouted developments of hundreds and sometimes thousands of houses.

 

Lands previously used for growing crops are not always contaminated. However, depending on what was grown and what chemicals and fertilizers were applied to the land, there may be an issue. It is always better to be aware of a potential for problems and seek to limit exposure to it both from a health risk standpoint and financially.

 

Over the past 50 years, many of the pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals used on crops have been phased out. Sometimes, new research developed better, easier to use chemicals. Many, however, were phased out because their toxicity to humans was found to be a health risk. DDT was widely used and promoted as one of the best chemicals on the market until Silent Spring. Other heavily used chemicals included many arsenic-based ones. Chemicals like these do not break down in the soil; instead, they accumulate. The same is true of many of the replacement chemicals. Each time they are applied to the soil or the plants, the concentration left behind increases. In some cases the contamination extends to the groundwater below as well as remaining in the soil near the surface. Private wells in some developments are showing high levels of toxic agricultural chemicals, which makes the water unsafe for the residents to drink. Soil samples being tested also contain high levels of chemicals applied to the land long ago. 

 

In Montville, New Jersey, one family in an upscale development received a letter from their town telling them their house was built on an old apple orchard that had been contaminated with pesticides. Other people in the developed area received the same notice. Now, the homeowners are involved in a lawsuit trying to find out why the homes were allowed to be built on contaminated property and who allowed it. In the meantime, property values have dropped tremendously, and residents are unsure what negative health effects can be attributed to the toxins. 

 

Developers use laws to their advantage, not necessarily disclosing information they should. Several states, including New Jersey, require disclosure if the property is located near a toxic waste site, but no requirement to disclose if the property was agricultural land even if it was contaminated with toxic pesticides. In addition, states only suggest soil testing on old farmland, but do not require it. This creates a loophole for developers to omit telling anyone about potential issues most likely to be found down the road. After all, a developer can ignore potential contamination as long as they do not look for it and find it, turning a blind eye to the problem. 

 

2. Landfills

 

There are thousands of old closed landfills across the country. Many of them were old town and county dumps located on the outskirts of towns. Explosive growth has long ago pushed development beyond where the old landfills sit, making the land desirable to develop. With available land difficult to find and lots of money to be made by developing it, old closed landfills are frequently eyed for their potential. 

 

Ignoring the risks, developers build on these closed landfills. All over the country, residents are suddenly finding their homes with cracking foundations, sinking backyards, and splitting driveways. The closed landfills that their homes were built on shift and move as the waste continues to decompose and gases continue to rise up. Methane gas, smelling like rotting eggs, permeates homes, and explosive levels of this gas have been measured in some places. 

 

Homeowners blame developers, who in turn blame town officials, ultimately bringing many legal cases to the courts. In the meantime, though, it’s the homeowners who are paying the mortgages and watching their investments and health rocked at the foundations. It is certain there will be many more developments both knowingly and unknowingly built near and on top of these rotting piles of toxic trash long ago covered and supposedly forgotten.

 

In the town of Mesquite, Nevada, residents in one development found themselves wondering why they were suddenly having issues with foundations fracturing and driveways breaking into multiple pieces. Turns out, the developer of their homes built them right on the edge of the old town landfill. At the time construction started, the town knew that the developer was building on property closer to the landfill than the town thought was proper. Unfortunately, the town approved the lots for residential houses. Now, the people living there are paying the price with their health potentially compromised and their property values in decline.

 

In Havelock, North Carolina, one resident has been finding much more than weeds coming up from his ground. Just working in the yard, he has pulled spark plugs, shards of glass, and the hood of an old truck out of the soil. Throughout the neighborhood, people’s previously flat yards are sinking down. Even trees planted in the neighborhood are no longer pointed straight up but in all directions off to the sides to where the land has sunk. 

 

The town admits the land that the neighborhood was built on used to be a landfill through the 1940s and 1950s. When the town started to grow back then, houses were built over the closed landfill. Some residents who have been in the town since those days even remember some of the items that were buried in the landfill, such as an old school bus. At that time, it was legal to bury toxic poisons in landfills, so the potential risk to this town is high. 

 

In New Orleans, Louisiana, residents are hoping after years of living on top of a closed landfill filled with toxic chemicals they may finally have a chance to move. In a lawsuit against the city of New Orleans, the residents said the city knowingly built housing on top of the old landfill and never disclosed to prospective owners the toxic chemicals they knew were underneath. The EPA previously tested the site years before the homes were built and determined there were high levels of toxic substances. Known as the Gordon Plaza site, an outside environmental expert and chemist tested and found 140 different toxic chemicals. There were 49 associated with increased risks of cancer. Lead was present at the site in levels that may cause developmental issues in children and harm almost every organ in the body in all the residents. The chemicals in the landfill under the homes people have lived in for years cause lung, liver, and bladder cancer. Unfortunately, many of the residents are unable to move elsewhere and hope the lawsuit may help them to fund a relocation desperately needed. 

 

3. Toxic Waste Sites

 

Many toxic waste sites are located in areas where the land is quite valuable and developers would like nothing more than to be able to build a project on them. We have seen these sites become shopping malls, offices, factories, and housing developments. Toxic waste sites that qualify to be included in the brownfields program usually get fast tracked by communities eager to get the property back onto the tax rolls and by developers eager to make money off a project. Many of these sites, once investigated for contaminants, are allowed to do a limited cleanup based on the intended future use. In most cases, that means not all of the contamination will be cleaned up and some may even be left onsite. Often, there may be a simple cap of asphalt or dirt allowed to cover the hazardous materials underneath as a barrier for what is built on top. Other times the level of cleanup was only required to bring the toxins down to acceptable levels to have the land able to be reused but the actual levels of contamination are still not safe ones for people to be exposed to. 

 

Surprises await the new homeowners who find out there was more toxic waste buried under their homes or nearby that was not remediated for some reason. In the haste for local governments to get these old toxic waste sites clean enough to be returned to the tax base, they allowed the toxic legacy of the property to be carried forward to the new owners or occupants unfortunate enough to purchase or set up business there. 

 

In Richmond, Virginia, the city is looking at building 4,000 apartments on the site of a heavily contaminated brownfield. The clean-up plan is to do nothing but pour a cap over the property and build the apartments on top of all the chemical contamination. It is already known the toxic mix will leak into the wetlands next to the development and the nearby bay. There also may be vapors coming up from the sealed area under the apartments, so the developer is proposing to vent the air in the lower levels to the outside so the residents aren’t poisoned. The developer of the project offered the city of Richmond a contribution of $52 million for parks and city programs. If the toxic site was cleaned up the way it should be, the cost is estimated by some people at over $100 million. 

 

In Bradenton, Florida, the town approved an affordable housing development. Normally, this action would be applauded as helping solve a housing problem. In this case, however, the town is approving the homes be built on top of a toxic waste site. An old dry cleaning operation nearby managed to poison the groundwater for over 16 acres. The state environmental protection agency is telling people it is safe to put houses there and have people live on the waste site. 

 

It is safe unless, they add, groundwater comes up to the surface during construction or after people are living there. Apparently, they are expecting a problem because the developers are even restricted from putting in stormwater ditches to divert flooding even though the frequent storms in the area necessitate some type of drainage on the property. Florida already has a very high water table in most of the state. All it needs is a slight change in water level, and then toxic waters will flood the homes. 

 

In Great Barrington, Vermont, a hazardous waste site that was contaminated with toxic chemicals including dioxins from a wood treating company is being turned into affordable and low-income housing. The clean-up plan to make this toxic waste site ready to have families living on top of it does not include removal of all the toxic chemicals or excavating to ensure there are not more underneath. The plan is to push much of the toxic dirt into piles and cover them with a material to hopefully seal the poisons from being exposed or leaking. The rest of the toxic waste site will have clean dirt dumped on top of it to cover the toxic contamination below. The situation and risk from the hazardous waste is so serious the site will need to be monitored forever but, they are allowing people to live on top of the site and not clean it up. 

 

4. Golf Courses

 

There is a large number of golf courses being developed into residential communities. Sometimes a larger golf course that has two complete 18-hole courses may close one of them, using it for a housing development and keeping the remaining golf course open. Others have undergone complete changeovers, and the land previously maintained for golf is now all housing developments and green space.

 

In Aventura Isles, an exclusive housing development built on top of an old golf course in Miami, residents are suing the developers. At issue with the more than $60 million of houses sold is the fact they were built on land contaminated with Dieldrin, arsenic, and other toxic materials from the prior golf course and possible agricultural use even before the course was built. Because of the contamination, the developers were required to notify prospective buyers of the ongoing cleanup, and major land use restrictions were supposed to be in the buyer’s deeds. The developers neglected to do any of the notifications prior to the sale and did not place the restrictions into the recorded deeds as required. The homeowners, who had no idea of the contamination, were not supposed to use the groundwater for wells or dig in the soil any deeper than 18 inches. They also were not allowed to remove any soil due to much of it containing toxic chemicals. 

 

Golf courses being made into housing developments are a large concern. Living next to the golf course exposes people to airborne toxins, but living on an old golf course exposes people through soil and water as well. Arsenic and other residues from pesticides remain in the soils for decades. Disturbing the soil while building or even making a garden in the yard could be hazardous. Many towns and developers dismiss the problem as minimal or even nonexistent. In every case, soil and water samples should be taken and tested for a range of chemicals used on golf courses through the past decade. You should especially test for the chemicals such as arsenic and Dieldrin, formally banned before the year 2000 as they are deadly. 

 

5. Mines

 

Surprisingly, housing built on former mining sites is not as uncommon as people think. Unsurprisingly, it poses a risk to those living on those former mines. Property where mining had taken place previously, sometimes over 100 years ago, still has remnants of materials with levels high enough to be hazardous. 

 

In Highland, Wisconsin, a farmer planted a field of soybeans on his plot at the edge of town. While most of the field did well, he noticed one section where the plants died off. Curious as to what caused this, he had a soil scientist at a local university perform a soil test. It turned out the soil had zinc in a concentration of 15,000 parts per million, far more than the normal 300 it should contain. That means 1.5% of the soil was made up of zinc. Investigations into past uses of the land determined that the section of Wisconsin had been a big mining center with lead and zinc mines all over. In fact, many of the existing towns there today were built right where the old mines still sit. The soybeans weren’t growing because the field  was covered with mine tailings from a nearby zinc mine. 

 

At one point the area was the largest producer of lead in the entire country. Researchers have located old records for over 2,000 mining sites and are now searching to see if other people are living on top of contaminated soil, some of which would have high levels of lead in them. Many more piles of old mine tailings are out there as well, most covered up with brush hiding a deadly secret underneath. 

 

On Navajo Nation land near Arizona and New Mexico, many towns are known to be contaminated with old mine residue from uranium mining. In some cases, ore from the mines was used for construction in the houses. The federal government continues to ignore this issue for the most part while Native Americans are subjected to levels of contamination that would be unacceptable in the suburbs of Virginia and Maryland. 

 

Tony and I could go on listing potential past uses you need to watch out for, but it is possible to have housing built on top of almost any of the hazards in this book. You need to check for these risks at each step. At some developments, it will be quite obvious there was no past use on the land although we always encourage some checking. Others may have had hazardous activity on them 50 or a hundred years and require some deeper investigation to turn up what that use may have been back then. From closed military bases to brownfield developments on contaminated factory sites, there are many dangers to watch for. Nobody may disclose all the truth to you when you ask, so always check and be cautious when someone tells you something you are unable to verify for yourself. 

 

The distances to be from any of these or other past uses you look at would be about the same we suggest for that in the chapter related to it. There are simply so many possible past uses and multiple past uses that may come up. The most important item to remember is to use your own judgment in evaluating the location and to not rely on information that may come from a source with a personal interest in you purchasing property or moving there.