Residents sue Texaco claiming MTBE contamination
Some Trevose homeowners say gasoline leaks have jeopardized their health.

Bucks County Courier Times
May 24-25, 2002

Its been more than a year since residents along Brownsville Road became alarmed that a nearby Texaco station was contaminating their air and water with gasoline.

Now, about 30 residents have filed a class- action lawsuit in county court against the company and the property owner.

They claim the company and property owner have acted with “reckless indifference” to their health and safety by exposing them to gasoline that spread from the station into their homes and yards. The contaminants include benzene, a known carcinogen, and MTBE, a gasoline additive linked to cancer.

“Our children played in our back yards, our pets played in our back yards. We had vegetable gardens,” said plaintiff Karen Jaxheimer, a 24-year resident of Knable Lane in Bensalem. “We worried [the station] is still leaking and what effect it is going to have on our health.”

Neighborhood dogs have died from cancer, residents have suffered with respiratory ailments and headaches, she said, without knowing for sure the cause. And for eight years, Jaxheimer said, residents were never told there was a problem.

Company officials said that residents were never at risk and it has properly monitored and cleaned up the site according to state environmental standards.

But residents said that contamination of their neighborhood has been an ongoing problem.

As recently as February, the levels of MTBE and benzene contaminants in one on-site monitoring well reached 13,100 parts per billion, according to state environmental officials. The highest acceptable level of MTBE is 20 ppb, according to the officials.

MTBE, or methyl tertiary-butyl ether, has been added to gasoline since the late 1970s to help reduce air pollution. But it also spreads rapidly through water.

Most of those who are suing live on Dara Faith Drive and Knable Lane on the Bensalem side of Brownsville Road. They are all connected to public water. But the gasoline, they said, has contaminated the air and groundwater, entering through their yards and basements.

SPOTTY RECORD

The Texaco station, visible from the top of a hill on Brownsville Road, has had problems over the last 10 years with leaking gasoline, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection.

Since 1994, the DEP has ordered a cleanup at the site at least five times because tests showed elevated levels of contaminants, according to DEP officials.

The cleanup efforts included pumping out groundwater, fixing cracked tanks and removing soil, DEP officials said. There are a total of 15 monitoring wells that check for contaminants, one of which is off-site.

Residents said they first learned about the contamination in 2000, when they noticed orange- colored oily water standing in their yards and noxious fumes in their homes.

That was the same year that MTBE levels soared to 161,000 parts per billion in one underground monitoring well at the station, the highest recorded level ever at the site, DEP officials said.

Jaxheimer said she and other residents began to look into the cause of the problem.

“It became apparent that this was pretty big and that we were not told about this,” she said.

Motiva Enterprises LLC, the marketing and legal wing of Texaco, notified Lower Southampton and Bensalem about the contamination, and they then notified residents, officials from both townships said. But residents said they should have known that the station was contaminated long before MTBE levels spiked so high.

Last year, air and water quality tests in nearby homes showed that one had MTBE levels 44 times the state health limit and benzene twice the state health limit, according to the suit.

Other homes checked out with acceptable levels.

TAKING THE CASE TO COURT

The lawsuit, filed in late February, is moving in court right now to the discovery phase, in which attorneys on both sides will take depositions from witnesses and conduct detailed research.

The first hurdle plaintiffs will face will be gaining class action status, which will enable them to act as a group in the case, plaintiff’s attorneys said.

That’s important, they said, because a class action is cheaper than filing individual cases and allows more people to join a possible settlement.

Plaintiff attorney Mark Tanner said anyone who lives within a 2,500-foot radius of the Texaco site - or about eight football fields - is potentially affected and could join the suit. That’s more than 100 people, he added.

“Here we have the ability to gather a lot of people whose rights have been violated in a similar way and hopefully help them,” he said.

Texaco, represented by Motiva, responded through prepared statements. Motiva said there is “no indication that this incident presents a risk to residents” and added that the station has fully cooperated with the DEP in-site monitoring and cleanup through pumping water, removing soils and sampling vapors in residents’ homes.

“We believe we have acted responsible and in good faith,” the statement said.

In March this year, Motiva sent a letter to neighborhood residents with an update on the latest cleanup effort.

“First and foremost,” the letter began, “we would like to emphasize that the health and safety of our neighbors is our highest priority.”

That outreach has satisfied residents like Rich and Nina Llorens, who knew about the contamination when they bought a new house on Knable Lane, two doors down from the station.

“I used to manage a gas station years ago so I know what it’s like,” Rich Llorens said, sitting on his front porch smoking a cigarette.

Llorens said that since he is hooked up to public water and has no basement, he doesn’t see how any contamination might hurt him. Plus, he said, the station has been involved in cleanup.

DEP officials said they’re also satisfied that Motiva is acting responsibly.

“We have no problems with what Motiva’s doing right now,” said Lauren Mapleton, a geologic specialist for the DEP. “They have put in all the monitoring wells. I feel Motiva’s doing that they’re supposed to do under the environmental law.”

Motiva submits quarterly monitoring reports to the DEP, and when levels of contamination spike, a cleanup effort stars immediately, she said.

Gasoline leaks at a gas station aren’t unusual, she said.

Gasoline can easily contaminate air and groundwater from leaks in the tank, loose piping and even a customer overfilling a car, she added.

Once gasoline gets into the air and water, it can be very difficult to control, Mapleton said.

“It doesn’t come out easily,” Mapleton said. “It gets stuck in bedrock, in fractures in the rock, in unconsolidated soils. It’s not just something that goes away on its own.”

Residents in the suit said that hardiness of the contaminants is just what they fear.

They would like Motiva to include them in an ongoing health-monitoring program, similar to what is gas station employees use. Residents said their health and well-being are at stake.

“This week we saw a puddle of oily water in the back yard,” Jaxheimer said. “We see it there all the time.”