A Civil Action (25 page)

Half an hour later, Pasqueriella was in Love’s living room. Schlichtmann liked the man immediately. He was short and rotund, in his late forties, and he spoke in a rapid, staccato manner, often repeating a
phrase several times. “I threw stuff back there myself,” he told Schlichtmann. “Yep, threw it there myself. Eddie Orazine, the assembly foreman, he told me to throw stuff out in the gully there. Nothing will grow there. I didn’t know at the time the stuff was toxic. My hands used to get white from it. I used to wash down the belts with the stuff, I don’t know what it’s called, I’m no chemist.”

“Trichloroethylene?” asked Schlichtmann.

“Yeah, that’s it. I’d work on the machine, drain out the old motor oil in the gearbox, put new oil in, let it run for a while to make sure it worked okay. If it was real dirty, I’d turn the gearbox on the side and put the solvent into it and swish it around. Then I’d dump it out back. In the machine shop, there used to be cutting oil, white like milk. Every once in a while Joe Meola used to drain the stuff out and go back and dump it in the gully. No one took it upon themselves to do anything on their own. None of the stuff was ever done without the permission of Paul Shalline and Eddie Orazine.”

“What about Tom Barbas?”

“Tommy, he would dump his paint thinner and other stuff in the ditch.”

“Barbas said he never did that.”

Pasqueriella snorted. He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I seen Tommy with my own eyes throw his stuff into that ditch. I stood right beside him while he did it. It was just routine. He was doing it for many years that I know of.”

Schlichtmann asked Pasqueriella if he’d call Barbas and talk to him.

“Right now?” said Pasqueriella. “Why not? Sure.”

Schlichtmann hoped that Barbas might even come over to Love’s house, as Pasqueriella had. He knew he’d get much more out of Barbas sitting with him in Love’s living room than he would at a deposition with Cheeseman present.

Pasqueriella dialed Barbas’s number and spoke for several minutes. In the living room, Schlichtmann listened to Pasqueriella’s end of the conversation. “Tommy, you handled that stuff,” he heard Pasqueriella say. “So did I. Remember, I used to dump out in the back, too. I stood there talking to you while you did it.” Pasqueriella listened for a minute. “You know exactly what’s going on. If you’re smart, you’ll tell the truth. Everything you know, you better tell. You don’t want to take the rap for Vin Forte.”

Pasqueriella paused for a moment, and then he said: “Listen, Tommy, if they ask me, I’m going to tell the truth. I ain’t lying for no one.”

Pasqueriella hung up the phone. “He says he doesn’t know anything about it. He was hemming and hawing. I know Tommy, and I can tell when he’s nervous.”

These revelations—especially the rumors of fifty or more drums being buried behind the plant—delighted Schlichtmann. It was clear to him that Barbas had lied under oath at his deposition. It was also clear that W. R. Grace had not told the EPA the whole truth about how much TCE the plant had really used, and what it had buried in the backyard.

But Schlichtmann wanted hard evidence. He had to squeeze information out of Grace and its employees. One way of doing that would be to get the assistant U.S. attorney for environmental affairs interested in the case. A criminal investigation by the Justice Department, carrying with it the threat of heavy fines, perhaps even jail sentences for some Grace employees and executives, could break the case wide open. Months earlier, Schlichtmann had gone to see the assistant U.S. attorney and urged him to investigate Grace. “They lied to the EPA, I’m sure of it,” Schlichtmann had said. “Why aren’t you investigating?”

“Give me facts, give me evidence, give me witnesses,” the government lawyer had replied. “I can’t do anything without evidence, and I’m not going to start an investigation just to help your case.”

Now, with information from Love and Pasqueriella, Schlichtmann felt he had enough to interest the U.S. attorney. He persuaded Love to speak with the government authorities, and he arranged a meeting on a day that Love had already planned to take off work. Love’s youngest son, who was sixteen years old and had experienced seizures since he was seven, had an appointment with a specialist at Children’s Hospital in Boston.

After their son’s appointment, Al and Evelyn Love went with Schlichtmann and Conway up to the seventh floor of the federal courthouse. The assistant U.S. attorney and two senior EPA officials interviewed Al for nearly three hours that afternoon. Evelyn sat next to her husband through it all. The demeanor of the assistant U.S.
attorney unnerved her. He stared intently at Al, eyes narrowed, the entire time. But Al appeared to handle it well. He spoke forthrightly and never seemed intimidated. He drew maps and told the government lawyers exactly what he’d told Schlichtmann about the pits and the rumors of fifty drums being buried under the addition to the plant.

Afterward, the assistant U.S. attorney took Schlichtmann aside and said that he would begin an investigation. He planned to issue subpoenas to Grace employees, commanding them to testify before a grand jury.

Schlichtmann had not managed to get Barbas over to Love’s house, but he got the next best thing. One week after Love’s visit to the assistant U.S. attorney, Barbas called Cheeseman to say that he had suddenly remembered something. He remembered now that he had been involved in dumping the drums into the pit.

Cheeseman, seated at his desk, had the sensation of “going suddenly cold,” he recalled later. He stood and looked out the window to the courthouse as he listened to Barbas. He felt himself getting angry.

Barbas, his words coming in a rush, told him in detail about everything he had suddenly “remembered.” The painter spoke about a red flatbed truck carrying barrels to the edge of a pit, opening the bung caps, Joe Meola helping him empty the barrels. To Cheeseman, it seemed as if Barbas believed that the more quickly he spoke, the less damaging his previous testimony would become. Cheeseman listened for a while, and then he started asking questions.

Cheeseman thought he understood. For twenty-four years Barbas had done what he’d been told. Barbas probably thought he’d go to jail for dumping toxic wastes on the ground, and this fear, perhaps, had led him to perjure himself.

That afternoon Cheeseman called Schlichtmann and said, “I won’t object if you want to depose Barbas again.”

“Tell me what’s going on, Bill,” said Schlichtmann, just as if he didn’t know.

Cheeseman explained that Barbas had called him that morning. “He says he remembers emptying the drums into the pit.”

•     •     •

“Mr. Barbas, you’ve had time to think about things since your first deposition?”

“Yes.”

They were back in Schlichtmann’s office. There were more lawyers in the conference room now. Cheeseman was there, of course, and one of Facher’s associates, and also two criminal lawyers, hired and paid by Grace to represent Barbas in the federal investigation.

“Mr. Barbas,” said Schlichtmann, “would you please tell me what you remember about your participation in the pouring of drums into a pit on W. R. Grace’s property?”

“That I was a participant,” said Barbas.

“Do you remember anything else?”

“Helping at the time was Joe Meola. And Frank Kelly.”

“You’ve had time to think about who ordered you to dump those barrels, is that right?”

“Yes. Paul Shalline asked me if I would mind pouring the contents of the barrels into the pit.”

“And what did you say?”

“Well, I asked him—all this time we were saving the material to have it sent out to a legal disposing firm. He said it was not hazardous, we could pour it.”

“Now, Mr. Barbas, you poured waste solvents into the trench throughout the 1960s, didn’t you?”

“I think I stated I only did it during 1961.”

“I know what you stated. I want you to think about the question very carefully. You understand you’re under oath?”

“Yes.”

“You understand that the statement you’re giving is under the pains and penalties of perjury?”

Barbas nodded.

“You know that Mr. Meola would on occasion pour waste material into the trench?”

“Yes, I do.”

“You saw him do that.”

“Yes.”

“For what period of time did you see Mr. Meola do that?”

“He was always doing it.”

Cheeseman interrupted and said to Barbas: “He’s now asking for your direct observation.”

Schlichtmann turned angrily at Cheeseman. “I’m speaking English, Bill. He’s not Portuguese. He doesn’t need an interpreter.” Schlichtmann turned back to Barbas: “Did you ever assist Mr. Meola?”

“No,” said Barbas.

Schlichtmann stared at Barbas. “Did you ever assist Joe Meola in pouring waste solvent onto the ground?”

This time Barbas nodded his head yes.

“You can’t just nod your head,” said Cheeseman.

“I used to bring it out on some occasions, if it was wet, and pour it on the ground.”

“How often would you do that?”

“Whenever it needed to be done.”

“Which is, approximately, a weekly basis?”

“Yeah, weekly. I’d say weekly.”

Schlichtmann did need an interpreter for Joe Meola. Although Meola, now in his seventies and retired, had worked for twenty years as the maintenance man at the Woburn plant, he claimed at his deposition that he did not understand English. Schlichtmann hired an Italian translator and the deposition went forward in Schlichtmann’s office. Meola denied emptying barrels into a pit. Nor had he ever dumped the contents of the degreasing tank—or anything else, for that matter—on the ground.

“Tom Barbas testified you would empty the degreasing tank on the ground,” said Schlichtmann.

“He is a liar,” replied Meola through the translator.

“Mr. Barbas testified that he would dump waste solvents on the ground behind the plant.”

“Good for him.” Meola clasped his head. “My head is already gone,” he said.

“We don’t want your head to go yet,” said Schlichtmann.

“I am seventy-three years old,” said Meola.

“You look wonderful,” said Schlichtmann.

“I look wonderful? If I come here another time I will have to go to the cemetery where the cypresses grow.”

4

Schlichtmann remembered the spring day, three years ago, when he drove out to Woburn and parked across from the Grace plant. He remembered how he’d wished he could go inside and look around, how its brick façade had looked to him like the wall of a small fortress then. But the door was opened now, and he was getting guided tours by deposition.

He learned that the Grace plant was, by most accounts, a fine place to work, providing you got along with Vincent Forte, the plant manager. Forte had ruled the plant like his own fiefdom for more than twenty years. Most employees were willing to live by Forte’s rules (which sometimes included doing outside work for Forte on company time) because the company paid good wages and offered generous benefits. Every Christmas the employees were treated to a party at a local restaurant. Behind the plant, on the five acres of overgrown fields that had once been farmland, the company had cleared away brush and built a sandpit for playing horseshoes. When Barbas developed an interest in archery, he and another employee had set up a target out back for practice, not far from where Al Love would sometimes chip golf balls. The company had installed a basketball hoop, as well as picnic tables so that employees could eat lunch outside on pleasant days. Joe Meola had started a vegetable garden, which he tended during his breaks and after hours, and soon several other employees began their own small gardens. But it was now clear to Schlichtmann that even while the company and the workers had transformed the area around the plant into a park and playground, they had also turned it into a toxic waste dump.

From current and former Grace employees, Schlichtmann heard that Tom Barbas was a neat and meticulous man and a conscientious worker. His high school yearbook recorded his pet peeve as “unshined shoes.” At the Woburn plant, management had commended him several times over the years for the orderly way he kept the paint shop. His job was a lowly one, but he was good at it and he did not seem much interested in advancement. Every day he would receive metal parts used in the construction of commercial food-packaging machines. These parts arrived at his shop covered with a film of oil, a residue from the machining process. Before painting the parts, Barbas would wipe
off the oily film using TCE, which he obtained from a 55-gallon drum that stood in the paint shop. He would pump some TCE into a small can, into which he would dip a rag. He was supposed to wear rubber gloves, but some of the parts were small and difficult to handle with gloves on. After cleaning a part, he’d hang it in the paint booth, a device about the size of a closet, constructed of rubber walls. Against the back wall of the booth, a curtain of water flowed in a constant, recirculating stream. Barbas used a spray gun and enamel paints, which he would sometimes thin with TCE. The circulating water captured overspray from the paint gun and carried it to a trough at the bottom of the booth.

At the end of each day Barbas would scoop the congealed paint out of the trough and into a plastic tray. Then he would clean the spray gun with TCE in a five-gallon bucket. On a normal day he might accumulate a gallon or two of waste. During his first week on the job, Paul Shalline had shown him the gully near the back door of the plant where he was to dump the waste.

Other workers told Schlichtmann how they would routinely come to the paint shop to obtain small amounts of TCE from the 55-gallon drum. They used the solvent to wipe grease and smudges off the neoprene conveyor belts or to clean stains from the metal tunnels where the plastic film was shrunk around food products. One employee said that when he started work in the assembly shop in 1970, he asked his foreman what to do with the leftover solvent and motor oil that he’d collected in a five-gallon pail. The foreman told him, “Dump it out back.” Almost every day during the five years this employee worked at the Grace plant he had dumped waste into the gully.