When was the woburn leather plant closed

One day, deep into the discovery phase of the Woburn case, Schlichtmann learned how delusional his cause really was. See that big computer room over there? Now let me ask you, Mr. Trial Lawyer: How many cases have been won where it was proved that cigarette smoking causes cancer? And you want to do it with none? On the flight back to Boston, well into his second scotch, Schlichtmann thought, What are you going to do? And he would not back away from his version of the truth, from his sense of what was right.

Which was a very lucky thing. It may have been valiant to spend that much on research, but it was also stupid. Before it was over, secretaries and paralegals were working without pay. Crowley had to use his Westwood home as collateral for a loan for the firm. Conway had to use his Wellesley home as collateral—twice. His wife still refuses to go to the annual Woburn gatherings for this reason.

Schlichtmann fell behind on his mortgage and started living in the office. But none of the partners regretted the case. Not when they were in it. This sort of change does not come easily, though.

In the Woburn case, the opposing counsel, Jerome Facher, a senior partner at the Boston law firm Hale and Dorr and a lecturer at Harvard Law School, convinced Judge Walter Skinner to break the immensely complicated trial into two parts.

But the bifurcation benefited Facher and the defense attorneys for W. Grace in two ways. First, it gave the defense teams two trials, which put an added burden of proof on Schlichtmann. Were the tannery and W. If the jury believed that, the case would move on to the next question: Were the chemicals in the water responsible for giving the children cancer?

Their tragic losses were his most compelling pieces of evidence. Facher worked to ensure that. Already Facher had succeeded in taking a case about dying children and turning it into one of soil samples and river flow, with academics making competing, esoteric claims. Schlichtmann had stayed up all night writing and rewriting and muttering into memory his speech.

He lost focus, kept losing his place. The jury found the tannery that Facher represented not guilty. The W. Grace chemical company, however, was guilty. This infuriated lead plaintiff Anne Anderson, who had just wanted an apology.

District Court in Boston. His clients were six Woburn families, all of whom had a child who had died of leukemia or who was being treated for the illness. Schlichtmann charged that W. The suit alleged that the well water caused the leukemia cases and numerous other illnesses, including cardiac arrhythmias and disorders of the immune and neurological systems.

The case, which eventually grew to involve eight families and three defendants UniFirst Corporation was later sued in Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge , raised considerable hopes.

Members of the community believed their questions about what had happened to Woburn would finally be answered -- and that those responsible would pay. But after seven years of legal maneuvering and millions of dollars spent on lawyers' fees, scientific tests, and financial settlements, not one of the 28 surviving plaintiffs has ever taken the witness stand to tell his or her story to a judge and jury.

In July , following a day trial, a six-member federal jury found that Grace had negligently contaminated the wells. The jury dismissed the charges against Beatrice, Grace's co-defendant. But a three-judge panel for the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit ruled in late that Beatrice's lawyers engaged in "misconduct" by failing prior to the trial to give Schlichtmann test results of which they had knowledge.

The court ordered Skinner to conduct hearings to determine the extent of that misconduct and whether it was "knowing or deliberate" on the part of Beatrice's lawyers. The first phase of those hearings was held in early On July 10 Skinner ruled that Beatrice, through the actions of a former tannery owner and his lawyer, had engaged in "deliberate misconduct.

More hearings were expected to be held in the fall of A ruling on whether the families will be granted a new trial will probably not be made until some time in What follows is the story of the toxic-waste trial and why it produced a muddled verdict that raised more questions than answers. East Woburn, that portion of Woburn east of Main Street Route 38 , is a low, swampy area that has been heavily industrialized for the past century. For decades Woburn's water had been obtained from six wells known simply as A through F drilled into the groundwater aquifer surrounding Horn Pond, located in the south-central portion of the city.

But in the s, as water became scarce, city officials considered drilling wells in groundwater-rich East Woburn. Some officials warned that the water obtained from such wells would be of poor quality. But the city moved ahead and drilled well G in , near the east bank of the Aberjona River, south of Route and north of Salem Street. Several years later the city drilled well H about feet north of well G, even closer to the river.

Almost from the moment the new wells went on line, residents of East Woburn complained the water smelled and tasted bad. One neighborhood resident, Anne Anderson, went so far as to question whether the water might have caused the leukemia that her son Jimmy was suffering from.

James Anderson, born July 16, , was diagnosed with leukemia in January By the time he died, on January 18, , many observers believed Anne Anderson had been right. But during the s most people dismissed her as a distraught mother groping for answers.

Repeated tests of wells G and H by local and state health officials showed the water was unpleasant but safe. Then, in , a state official nearly stumbled on the truth. While testing an experimental instrument designed to detect extremely small quantities of organic solvent chemicals, he came across inexplicably high readings from wells G and H. But rather than explore the matter further he assumed the readings were wrong, and used them to calibrate the testing device.

The truth was finally learned in May Officials discovered that in a "midnight dumping" incident someone had ditched a large quantity of barrels several thousand feet north of the wells.

The agency found that the barrels had not leached their contents into the wells -- but that the wells were contaminated with several chlorinated organic compounds, including trichloroethylene TCE and tetrachloroethylene , also known as perchloroethylene PCE.

The wells were closed on May 22 and have not been used as a source of drinking water since. The Metropolitan District Commission [now the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority] agreed to replace the lost water by connecting East Woburn to its regional distribution system. It also led to studies that showed Woburn's leukemia rate was as much as four times higher than would be expected for a community of its size -- and that most of the leukemia cases were among families who had received most of their water from wells G and H.

Of the scores of industries that could have potentially polluted the wells, Schlichtmann focused on three:. The toxic-waste trial, Anne Anderson et al. Grace et al. Partly this was because of the delays inherent in the judicial system. Partly it was because of the massive scope of the case, which involved novel legal and scientific theories.

The pre-trial discovery period, which included testing of groundwater and soil at the Grace, Beatrice, and UniFirst properties, as well as the taking of scores of depositions from witnesses who might or might not be called to testify, was described by Judge Skinner and the lawyers as the most intensive in which they had ever been involved.

To get the case into the courtroom, Schlichtmann was assisted by Anthony Z. Roisman, an attorney with Trial Lawyers for Public Justice, a Washington-based public-interest law firm. According to a number of people connected with the suit, Roisman's work was crucial in persuading Skinner to schedule the case for trial. The pre-trial period was also marked by an ugly dispute between Schlichtmann and Joseph I. Mulligan Jr. Mulligan claimed he was entitled to one-third of the legal fee -- Schlichtmann responded that Mulligan was properly discharged from the case by the families themselves, who were dissatisfied with his performance.

Following months of charges and countercharges in US District Court and Middlesex Superior Court, Schlichtmann settled with Mulligan for what one source said amounted to several hundred thousand dollars.

The settlement came on February 12, -- just six days before jury selection began in the toxic-waste trial. Though it did not appear that the Schlichtmann-Mulligan dispute interfered with Schlichtmann's preparations for the trial, it was a distraction that could not have been helpful. Meanwhile, one aspect of the case was quietly resolved during this period. Under the terms of the settlement, UniFirst did not admit any responsibility for contaminating the wells.

An unusual stipulation required the plaintiffs to use the entire settlement to finance their case against Grace and Beatrice. Finally, in early , the trial was ready to get underway. The judge was Walter Jay Skinner, Harvard Law '52, a year-old Yankee Republican who had made his reputation two decades earlier as a prosecutor fighting corruption under Massachusetts Attorney General Edward Brooke. Skinner's efforts had put several members of the Governor's Council behind bars. His reward was that the council, led by its legendary chairman, Patrick "Sonny" McDonough, twice rejected Skinner when he was nominated for state judgeships.

In his mentor, Brooke, by then a US senator, prevailed upon President Nixon to appoint Skinner to the federal bench. Skinner had a reputation for fairness, integrity and patience. That last quality would be tested a number of times over the ensuing five months. Skinner ruled that the trial would be divided into three phases.

In the first phase, the plaintiffs would attempt to show that wells G and H had become contaminated as a result of actions by Grace and Beatrice, and that the contamination had occurred before the wells were closed in If the plaintiffs could not persuade the jury to issue a finding against either defendant, then the trial would be over.

But if the jury ruled against one or both defendants, the trial would proceed to a second phase. In this phase, the plaintiffs would attempt to show that exposure to contaminated well water resulted in the leukemia cases and the other illnesses alleged in the lawsuit. If the jury found that the well water was not responsible for any illnesses, then the trial would end. But if the jury found that the water was responsible, the trial would move to a third phase, during which damages would be set.

Schlichtmann objected, telling Skinner it was unfair that he would not be able to present his entire case at once. Because the first phase of the trial would be entirely technical -- that is, the jurors would be asked to decide solely whether Grace and Beatrice had contaminated the wells prior to , not whether any illnesses had resulted -- the families would not testify at all unless there was a second phase.

Because they were potential witnesses, they would not even be allowed to attend court sessions, meaning the jurors would not see the people who brought the suit before rendering a verdict. Nesson, who assisted the plaintiffs, complained that Skinner's decision took the "humanity" out of the first phase of the case. He also argued that evidence as to when the victims began suffering ill effects -- which couldn't be brought in until the second phase -- would have helped the jurors decide when the contaminants reached the wells, an issue in the first phase.

Added Schlichtmann: "The jury [was] never in a position to evaluate the relevance of one piece of information over another because they didn't have the whole story. In that same article, attorney Jerome P. Facher , of the Boston firm of Hale and Dorr, Beatrice's chief trial counsel, responded: "You can't try a case for five months and say to a jury, 'Here's the whole mess.

Now just go and decide, was the defendant liable? There's no point in going into four months of medical evidence on contaminated water if the defendant didn't contaminate the water. Jury selection began on Tuesday, February 18, , and continued four hours a day, not including the weekend, until February Seventy-six prospective jurors were interviewed in Skinner's chambers, with the press allowed to observe but banned from reporting on the proceedings until after the jury was selected.

Finally, a jury of six regular members and six alternates was seated. Skinner said he chose such a high number of alternates because of the possibility that the trial would last a year and that some members would have to be excused. Opening day of the trial, Monday, March 10, was one of the most dramatic of the case. More than lawyers and media representatives jammed the 12th-floor courtroom for opening arguments.

In front of Skinner, at the table closest to the bench, was the plaintiffs' legal team, led by Schlichtmann. Joining him were his partners at the law firm, Kevin P. Conway and William J. Behind the plaintiffs' table, and slightly to the left, was Beatrice's legal team from Hale and Dorr, led by Facher, the firm's chief of litigation. He was assisted by Neil H.

Jacobs and Donald R. The chief trial counsel was Michael B. Schlichtmann, in his opening statement, said, "Woburn has had more than its share of sickness and death" -- caused, he added, by "industrial waste that was dumped into the ground by companies that didn't care about the public health, companies that knew what they were doing was wrong but did it anyway. Both Facher and Keating countered that their clients did not contaminate the wells -- and that even if they had, the chemicals at issue in the trial did not cause leukemia or any of the other illnesses alleged in the families' complaint.

Facher told the jurors that the Riley family purchased the acre property in so they could drill a well on the property for the tannery's use. Added Keating: "Grace cares. All of us would like to find the answers to what causes leukemia and other cancers. Following the excitement of opening day, the trial quickly settled into a routine that was frequently mundane and sometimes mind-numbing.

More than one juror was observed dozing off during the 78 days of trial. For that matter, Judge Skinner nodded out once or twice, as did the few members of the press who followed the case on a daily basis. But there were several key portions that bear review. Skinner had decided the plaintiffs would proceed first against Beatrice. So on March 13 John C. Drobinski, a geologist employed by Weston Geophysical Corporation, of Westborough, took the witness stand to begin more than a week of testimony.

Schlichtmann had hired Weston Geophysical to conduct tests on the Beatrice property during the summer and fall of Drobinski testified he had found several of the five chemicals named in the complaint in groundwater on the property and in soil beneath a pile of debris on the property -- and in various other locations as well.

One contaminated area was near a piece of sludge that gave off a leather-like smell, Drobinski said, indicating it had come from the tannery. Drobinski also displayed a series of poster-size aerial photographs of the 15 acres taken during the s, '60s, and '70s.

He testified that piles of debris and stacks of barrels and other containers seen in those photos were in the same location as the contamination he had observed in He added he had found newspapers, playbills, and beer cans dating back to the mids in the main debris pile.

Over Facher's objections, and with the jury out of the courtroom, Skinner ruled that Drobinski was an expert witness who could be allowed to give his opinion as to when the wells had become contaminated. The judge reasoned that, although Drobinski had not used any scientific methods, he was a "specialist" whose profession required him to synthesize many types of knowledge. After the jury was brought back, Drobinski testified that he believed groundwater beneath the 15 acres became contaminated during the s and '70s as a result of surface dumping.

Facher lost that particular battle, but when he began his cross-examination of Drobinski he showed how he had earned the reputation of being one of the most able trial lawyers in the country. Facher began by destroying Drobinski's academic credentials, forcing the hapless witness to admit he had twice lied under penalty of perjury when applying for jobs.

Drobinski had told two prospective employers he had received his master's degree prior to actually earning that degree in Facher then excoriated Drobinski for not considering other possible sources of contamination to the 15 acres, such as a sewer line running through the middle of the land that frequently overflowed; the Aberjona River, which forms the property's eastern boundary and which also frequently overflowed; a contaminated piece of land to the north of the 15 acres; and a waste-oil business, a barrel-recycling operation, and an auto-body shop southeast of the 15 acres.

He asserted that Drobinski had no evidence that the property was ever contaminated prior to Facher even produced records from the Massachusetts Land Court showing that the main debris pile on the 15 acres actually sat on a narrow strip of land owned by the City of Woburn -- evidence Schlichtmann said he would refute, but never did.

Then, for comic relief, Facher sprayed numerous household substances into Drobinski's face that contained many of the chemicals named in the complaint. Drobinski declined Facher's request that he sniff the substances and Schlichtmann was enraged, but the jurors appeared to be amused -- no small thing during a five-month trial. Following Drobinski's testimony, Schlichtmann began a fruitless quest to show that the Riley tannery itself had contributed to the contamination of the acre property.

The cost of cleaning up all those toxic minefields remains unclear. Neither the EPA nor Department of Defense officials were able to produce cleanup figures for any of the six military facilities in Massachusetts. As toxic waste continues to percolate in groundwater and remediation costs soar into the stratosphere, it all seems like bad news to enviro-conscious activists like Taryn Hallweaver, the Eastern Massachusetts community organizer for the Toxics Action Center, a New England-based advocacy group.

These sites just aren't getting cleaned up. A generation has already passed since the Woburn site and three others in Massachusetts landed on the EPA's list of the most contaminated spots in America. Created in in response to health concerns over toxic waste in neighborhoods like New York's Love Canal, Superfund, — formally known as the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act — is today comprised of more than 1, toxic hot spots nationally.

In Massachusetts, the four sites that made it onto the nation's first Superfund list are still on it. In western Massachusetts, where PCS Resources, a waste oil refinery and solvent recovery plant in Palmer earned Superfund designation in , contaminated soils have been removed and cleanup levels achieved but in , an EPA study of the site found that 1,4-dioxane, a contaminant not previously assessed, may be present on that property.

Part of the reason behind the snail's pace of cleanup is due to the lack of technology to quickly remove toxins from soil and groundwater. Cleaning up ground and water contamination is an arduous and cumbersome task that may take decades to complete, officials maintain.

Site owners also force lengthy delays, challenging EPA decisions and balking at the cost of cleanup, creating a lull that can sometimes last for years.

Show Caption Hide Dead pigs rotting in field, During post World War II re-industrialization Woburn was again the site of increased industrial development because of its proximity to Boston and because it was located at the juncture of two major highways, Interstates 93 and And, as before, because of the abundant water supply, much of the newer industry located along the banks of the Aberjona River and in the Aberjona watershed. The Aberjona River was known to be contaminated as early as the mids.

In the late s reports from the State Board of Health documented deaths from cholera and typhoid from drinking water supplies contaminated with wastes from the tanneries. In , the Massachusetts Department of Fisheries and Wildlife released a photo essay of photographs documenting contamination along the entire length of the Aberjona River Massachusetts In , the Aberjona River Commission released a report documenting both point and non-point sources of pollution in the Aberjona River Watershed.

In , the U. EPA released the results of a study documenting extensive ground-water and surface-water contamination in the Aberjona River watershed Aberjona River Study. Though small tanning and shoe making shops existed before , Woburn's economy was primarily agricultural until the early 19th century.