The Lawsuit and Remediation
The Lawsuit (1980s)
In 1981 Anne Anderson and other families in Woburn began to seek legal help exploring the possibility of a lawsuit. As we saw earlier when we consider the concept of causality from a scientific perspective (in this case an epidemiologic one), we find this to be enormously challenging. From a legal perspective it is even more so. In the video below Leonard Glantz, Department of Health Law, Bioethics and Human Rights at BUSPH discusses the difficulties of proving causality in the Woburn case.
The Woburn families were referred to the law office of Jan Richard Schlichtmann, a young, Cornell-educated lawyer who specialized in medical malpractice cases. Schlichtmann and his partners were certainly engaged by the families compelling story. While they agreed they would like to help, there were just too many unanswered questions. When did the pollution of the wells take place? Who was responsible for this pollution? Did the doctors agree that the chemicals in the water caused the children's leukemia? There were no answers and no clear path to getting these answers. Therefore, from a legal perspective there appeared little that these lawyers could do to assit these injured families. Still the families would not take no for an answer...
In May 1982 Schlichtmann and his firm representing seven plaintiffs from six Woburn families filed a lawsuit against W.R. Grace, Beatrice Foods (Riley Tannery), and UniFirst in U.S. District Court in Boston claiming they had contaminated two municipal wells in East Woburn. All the plaintiff families had a child who had died of leukemia or who was being treated for the illness. The defendants denied that they had caused the pollution of the wells and that the contaminants, primarily TCE, were responsible for the leukemia cases.
In the video clip below Attorney Jan Schlichtmann recalls in some detail the challenges he and his legal team faced in pursuing this claim through our legal system. While he had a history of successful prosecution of personal injury cases, this case required not only a personal, clinical approach to address issues of causality; it also required a more encompassing, epidemiological approach. However, he explains, the legal system is not structured to readily allow for the combined perspectives he and his team endeavored to pull together.
The following are additional online resources related to legal aspects of the Woburn case.
- Death and Justice is a monograph written by Dan Kennedy that details the trial and why it ended the way it did.
- Anderson v. W.R. Grace is a website developed by the Seattle University School of Law that discusses legal aspects of the Woburn case.
Jan Schlichtmann further the limits of the legal system to address these issues.
Remediation
During the 1980s, Reverend Bruce Young, Anne Anderson and other Woburn parents testified at hearings chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy. They spoke about their concerns and the significance of the health studies, in the hope that they would provide funding to clean up the nation's worst toxic dumps.
In 1983, Wells G and H were listed on the National Priorities List following the EPA's investigation of the aquifer. The agency ranked each site by a formula involving the proximity of the polluted area to residential areas, the nature of the chemicals involved, and whether or not drinking water had been contaminated. By 1983, there were 418 sites on the NPL, and Wells G and H were ranked 39th.
In 1984 Anne Anderson testified at hearings chaired by Senator Ted Kennedy. Reverend Bruce Young, Anne Anderson, and other Woburn parents spoke about their concerns and the significance of the studies in the hope that they would provide funding to clean up the nation's worst toxic dumps.
President Reagan was proposing to downsize government, and a massive budget deficit loomed in the background. Nevertheless, the testimony of Woburn parents and panic-stricken residents of Love Canal, NY put a human face on the need for a national cleanup. Superfund, the common name for the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) became a law in 1980 and was later funded with 9 billion dollars.
Superfund Site Assessment Process
The Superfund Site Assessment Process is described in the EPA document below. After a site has been placed on the NPL, it is eligible for additional activities under the remedial phase of the Superfund program. During this phase, steps are taken to identify and implement cleanup remedies that remove, reduce, or control the risks. The goal of this phase is to assess the nature and extent of the threat to public health and the environment. After the site has been assessed, the EPA then issues a Record of Decision, which describes the cleanup actions that will be implemented. If a site is determined to require no additional response, it may be removed from the NPL.
Superfund Cleanup Process is an EPA webpage that highlights the different components and stages involved in a Superfund cleanup.
EPA Investigation of Woburn Concludes
In 1988, EPA concluded its own detailed investigation that demonstrated that groundwater contamination came from five properties located around the municipal wells, designating roughly $68 million to cleanup costs.
The lawsuit and subsequent appeals ended in 1989, with a commitment on the part of the responsible parties to contribute to the costs of remediation. FACE formed citizen advisory committees to oversee the cleanup process. The cleanup approach was addressed in four stage, which consisted of immediate actions and three long-term remedial phases focusing on source control and contamination migration, and cleanup of the aquifer and the Aberjona River.
Review the EPA's NPL site on Wells G and H to answer the following questions.
