Justice Gaines, a resident of south Providence, speaks at a community meeting on Rhode Island Recycled Metals on Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024. (Nancy Lavin/Rhode Island Current)
The plumes of smoke soaring from a south Providence scrapyard five months ago have cleared.
But frustration over the environmental and health consequences for those who live near Rhode Island Recycled Metals still burned brightly Tuesday during a two-hour meeting at the West End Community Center.
The gathering was intended to comply with state environmental requirements for public education and involvement in the scrapyard’s future, along with mandated cleanup of hazardous levels of metals — including lead and arsenic — detected in the soil. But residents remained unconvinced that the company had overcome a 15-year history of pollution and safety problems — including two fires on the site this year.
“I go to sleep thinking about what would happen if a giant fire in that scrapyard sets one of those jet fuel tanks on fire,” said resident Ellen Tuzzolo. The Allens Avenue scrapyard sits a quarter-mile north of petroleum storage and distribution company Motiva Enterprises.
Monica Huertas, meanwhile, remembered the asthma attacks that gripped her children one night in April.
The next day, Huertas, an activist who heads grassroots group The People’s Port Authority, awoke to learn of a fire that broke out overnight at the scrapyard.
The second fire in July reignited scrutiny of the business, with a series of court filings ending with a month long business shutdown and subsequent, court-mandated set of safety protocols, including infrared cameras and a fire suppression system.
Special master petitions for more control
Operations at the scrapyard “improved’ since the fire safety plan was implemented in August, Rick Land, the court-appointed special master for the site, wrote in his latest report to state Superior Court. Yet Land still asked a judge to give him more control over the scrapyard’s implementation of a separate environmental cleanup and permit process led by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), noting the company’s history of legal and environmental problems.
“This matter has been pending for almost ten years, eight of those with the Special Master’s limited oversight during which time RIRM removed or caused the removal of all vessels from the waterfront, but did not until much more recently, engage in the required regulatory process to address site conditions and permitting for on-going use of the Premises as a metals recycling facility,” Land wrote in his Nov. 4 report.
The Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General, which first sued the company in 2015 over water pollution and oil spilling from its site into the Providence River, still wants court-mandated receivership — a higher level of control and oversight than a special master — according to court filings.
Rhode Island Superior Court Judge Brian Stern has not issued a decision on the dueling proposals for stricter oversight of the company. Land said Tuesday he did not know when a decision was expected.
Do-over meeting
Tuesday’s meeting followed an August community presentation of land and water testing results that devolved into a shouting match between Rhode Island Recycled Metals attorney Richard Nicholson, and community members.
DEM mandated the second public meeting as a kind of do-over of the August presentation to answer community concerns and give an update on the cleanup process. The second go-round was less angry and drew a significantly larger crowd of participants.
Residents, activists and officials peppered Nicholson, Land and the company’s environmental consultants with questions about flooding, future uses for the land, and air and water pollution. Many expressed doubt that the company could be trusted to clean up the site.
“What you’re saying is ‘we’re putting a cap now and we’re going to keep contaminating the site, and once a 100-year storm comes, y’all are f**ked,’” Justice Gaines, a community resident said. “It doesn’t sound sustainable, it sounds like a system to allow Rhode Island Recycled Metals to keep polluting the area.”
While consultants with Lincoln-based Lake Shore Environmental Inc. attempted to address environmental concerns, Nicholson took a different tack, shifting focus to other industrial companies along the waterfront, along with the pollution from nearby highways, and even fires in the nearby residential neighborhood.
“The house fires that happen in your neighborhood far exceed what happens on this site,” Nicholson said.
Huertas chimed in, “That’s not good faith, sir.”
DEM crackdown
DEM is cracking down on the company for missing remediation and stormwater management permits, first flagged as missing in 2010, a year after the company opened along the waterfront.
In December 2023, DEM issued a violation notice and an accompanying $25,000 fine to the company for failing to submit required planning documents for handling and properly disposing of hazardous materials, according to documents obtained by Rhode Island Current. The company appealed the notice to DEM’s administrative tribunal days later.
The appeal remains under review, Richard Nicholson, an attorney for Rhode Island Recycled Metals, said Tuesday.
Yet the company appears to at last be taking steps to address the long outstanding cleanup plans. A draft remediation plan published in February calls for adding a concrete cap over a portion of the site to isolate potentially hazardous chemicals in the soil, along with a land-use restriction deed that mandates regular inspections of the site, and cap, by regulators, among other conditions. The company also plans to seek the requisite stormwater management permit following approval of the cleanup plan.
Nicholson said Tuesday that the company was committed to considering a “higher and better use” for the 12-acre site, and was willing to explore other ideas suggested, such as air quality monitors. There were no reports of adverse air quality following either of the fires that broke out at the scrapyard this year, but there also was no local detection system — a top suggestion by Richard Stang, senior attorney with Conservation Law Foundation.
“One of the biggest problems is, if you have damage but you can’t prove where that damage came from, you’re stuck,” Stang said. “That’s been a problem plaguing this site and this community for a couple decades.
The draft plan as well as all other documents related to the site are available on DEM’s website.
DEM will continue to accept written comments on the site cleanup plan and future uses through Dec. 23. Comments must be submitted in writing via email to ashley.blauvelt@dem.ri.gov or by mail to RIDEM, Office of LRSMM, Attn: Ashley Blauvelt, 235 Promenade Street, Providence, RI 02861.
Comments will be incorporated into the decision regarding both the cleanup plan and separate, public involvement plan determining future operations on the site. Nicholson said the cleanup plan will take nine months once a final application is submitted and approved by DEM.
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