For Release: August 14, 1998

Contact: Greg Perry, Attorney General's Office, 274-4400 ext. 2336

PROVIDENCE - In a Summary Judgment requested by the Department of Environmental Management and the State Attorney General's Office, Arpad Merva, the current owner of more than 20 acres of petroleum-contaminated land in East Providence bordering the Seekonk River near Dexter Road, has been ordered to take immediate action to clean up the property.

In a Final Judgment entered on August 11, Superior Court Justice Richard J. Israel granted the state's Motion for Summary Judgment holding that the Merva property is discharging oil into the state's environment and, thereby, constitutes a public nuisance. The Final Judgment entered by Judge Israel requires Merva to "forthwith" design, construct and implement a remediation plan to clean up all petroleum contamination on or emanating from the property in a manner satisfactory to DEM and in accordance with all federal, state and local requirements.

DEM will be asking Merva to submit a plan for the clean-up of the petroleum contamination to DEM's Office of Waste Management within the next two weeks.

The land, once sought for a coal-fired power plant by the Newbay Corporation, was purchased from Northeast Petroleum Corporation in 1985 by Merva. Northeast Petroleum had previously acquired the site from Exxon Company. Both Northeast Petroleum and Exxon had used the site for operation of oil storage and distribution facilities.

Two environmental site assessment reports generated in 1989 in regard to the then-proposed construction of a power plant verified the presence of significant quantities of free-phase petroleum contamination beneath the site. A subsequent environmental site assessment report completed in 1991 estimated the volume of the product below the site at approximately 28,000 gallons. The petroleum and petroleum-contaminated groundwater located beneath the site are migrating toward the Seekonk River.