A warning never sounded

The estimated 3 million gallons of industrial waste dumped at the Wade lot in the 1970s were produced by at least 49 companies, Environmental Protection Agency records show.

The Inquirer sent letters via overnight courier to those companies, seeking comment on the presence of their wastes at the dump. Since the 1978 fire, about one-third of the companies have closed or changed hands; in those cases, the newspaper directed the letters to former executives or attorneys for the firms.

Responses were received on behalf of 27 of the 49 companies. None denied that its wastes had wound up at Wade. Nearly all had little or no additional comment.

A few said that once the waste left their facilities, they were not required to know its final destination.

SmithKline Corp. (now SmithKline Beecham) "had no knowledge that the wastes were being disposed of improperly," said Thomas Johnson, a spokesman for the pharmaceutical maker.

He likened it to household trash pickups. "Do I know what happens to the trash when they pick it up every week at my curb? The answer is no."

According to shipment records obtained by EPA, almost 375,000 gallons of SmithKline's waste went to the Wade dump before the company learned in 1977 that its hauler, ABM Disposal Service Co., was under investigation by state environmental officials for illegal dumping. "We immediately terminated the contract" and cooperated with authorities, Johnson said.

About 72,000 gallons of wastes were taken from Boeing Vertol's Ridley Township plant to the Wade site, shipping documents show. While describing Boeing as "a minor contributor," spokeswoman Madelyn Bush said the company "voluntarily agreed" to help pay for the cleanup.

Michael Veysey, counsel to Gould Inc. since the late 1970s, said that about 750,000 gallons of waste was sent to the Wade dump from Gould's battery-manufacturing plant near Scranton. That would make Gould's contribution the largest in terms of volume.

Veysey said, however, that "the waste was 99.9 percent water with just trace elements of lead."

A number of companies, including DuPont Co., Congoleum Corp., Kimberly-Clark Corp. (which acquired Scott Paper Co.), Rhone-Poulenc Rorer (which acquired Amchem), and Texaco Inc., said corporate records pertaining to the Wade dump were no longer available.

Some company representatives stressed that at the time of the Wade dumping, virtually no state or federal regulations governed hazardous-waste disposal. That changed dramatically in Pennsylvania in 1980 with the introduction of "cradle-to-grave" record-keeping, mandated under federal and state laws.

As a result, SmithKline's Johnson said, "wastes are tracked from the time they leave the plant to the time they are disposed of." Generators are legally liable if their chemicals are discarded improperly.