State to Audit A Third Toxic Site in One Framingham Neighborhood

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) plans to investigate a former Boston Gas site on Irving Street in Framingham, where levels of toxins, including coal tar, arsenic and cyanide have been detected.

This is the third toxic site under investigation by the state in that south section of Framingham.

MassDEP is overseeing the clean-up of a General Chemical Site down the street and a clean up of a playground at Mary Dennison playground, too.

The site, now owned by NSTAR gas, and leased to several businesses including a landscaping business now, operated as a manufactured gas plant (MGP) from the late-1880s until the late the 1960s.

According to MassDEP, “tar processing was also conducted on portions of the property from before 1946 until the early-1960s.”

MassDEP said “use of the property for these operations has resulted in releases of OHM (including coal tar, cyanide and
volatile and extractable petroleum hydrocarbons) to soil, groundwater and wetland sediment and surface water.”

That site is “very, very frightening,” said Town Meeting member Judith Grove.

The site was listed as a watch site in a 2002 Superfund report. The site was identified as a “state lead” site since July 2000 and a U.S. EPA contractor completed a site assessment at the site as far back as 1996.

In 2010, a report submitted to the U.S. EPA report detected several toxins and carcinogens on the property.

On Sept. 24, an Auburn man, who is battling kidney cancer, filed a complaint against the property owner Northeast Utilities, their agents and servants.

The site consists of 22 acres of land bounded to the south and southwest by Irving Street, to the west by commercial property, to the north by wetlands and Beaver Dam Brook (which flows from the west, then to the north as it exits the Site), and to the east by wetlands and an unnamed tributary stream that flows north and discharges to Beaver Dam
Brook. NSTAR Gas owns the majority of the site, with the exception of a parcel of land to the southeast.

In 2013, a Norwood geo-environmental firm conducted a “Substantial Hazard Evaluation” using the soil, groundwater, surface water, and sediment analyses, a srequired under a remedial action plan from MassDEP in 2009.

That 2013 evaluation focused on possible exposures to human and environmental receptors considering existing environmental conditions and current uses of the site.

A June 2011 document, calculated Cumulative Receptor Cancer Risk and Non-Cancer Risk were within
risk limits established and concluded that a substantial hazard to human health does not exist at the Site under current conditions and uses.

MassDEP is conducting another audit of the site now to assess the risks again.

In 2010, the presence of coal tar was detected in the unnamed stream channel located to the north of the Sudbury Aqueduct and concentrations of cyanide in surface water located north of the aqueduct; and, concentrations of cyanide in upland soil located in an area near the southeast boundary of the site, according to a MassDEP report.

After that report, excavation and removal of a significant quantity of coal tar from the unnamed stream and the
associated man-made channel west of the stream was conducted to mitigate the condition of ”Readily Apparent Harm” in the wetlands.

Approximately 2,400 tons of sediment and soil saturated with coal tar were removed from the two channels.

Since then, concentration of cyanide in select wells and in established surface water have been monitored.

The 2013 Norwood firm’s report determined that based on well monitoring between 2008 and 2010, “Calculated Cumulative Receptor Cancer Risk and Non-Cancer Risk were within acceptable risk limits ... and no Substantial Hazard to human health and the environment exists under current site use.”

in 2007, the Framingham Board of Selectmen voted to enter into a brownfields tax agreement with John Mullen for 350 Irving Street. The agreement written by the Assessors, with assistance from Town Counsel outlined the clean up time frame. If Mullen failed to make the payments as outlined in the deal, the agreement became null and void, and he will owe the town the entire $2.1 million in taxes that the current owner, owed to the Town. In May 2008, Town Meeting approved a plan for the cleanup of 350 Irving St.