Site's toxic mix rousts a family, may cost town
Records hint of '50s dump on Manchester property
Julie and David Gesner intended to start a family in the yellow Colonial-style house with the green door in Manchester-by-the-Sea. But in April last year, Julie discovered she was pregnant, and suddenly her husband's commute to Boston every morning seemed too far.
So, the couple decided to sell and move closer to the city, where he worked as a patent attorney. That's when the rumor started: that their Pine Street home - and possibly those of their neighbors - had been built on an old town dump.
A search of town and state environmental records proved nothing. Still, the whispers were enough to turn away the first prospective buyer. The second insisted on testing the 1.3-acre site.
Now, following the discovery of high levels of chromium, arsenic, cadmium, lead, and other chemicals in the soil, the state Department of Environmental Protection is insisting that the site be cleaned, and the Gesners have been left paying for a house that they dare not live in and cannot sell.
"We'd like to see some assessment on neighboring properties, as well," said Ed Coletta, a spokesman for the state agency. He added that both the town and the house's previous owner were sent letters this month indicating that they may be responsible for the contaminated land. "Eventually, they're going to have do some cleanup work there."
The letters state that in February, the Department of Environmental Protection "determined that there is or has been a release or threat of release of oil and/or hazardous material" at the Pine Street house and that the property needs to be cleaned. Cleanup should start as soon as possible, according to the letters, dated April 11.
Meanwhile, Town Administrator Wayne Melville says he is trying to determine just what Manchester-by-the-Sea is dealing with. He said that records about the burn dump are spotty, but that an unsigned lease agreement indicates that the town may have operated the facility for a few years in the 1950s. Few people he has talked to can say for sure that the dump existed. Still, he thinks the town will be stuck with the cleanup bill.
"I think we can say with certainty that there's going to be a cleanup here," Melville said. "Regrettably, I think the town of Manchester is going to be the deep pocket here."
The Gesners have moved away, though they are still paying for their former home.
"We can't sell it in its condition," Julie Gesner, whose daughter is 4 months old, said by phone yesterday. "It's not safe. We can't even rent it to someone. There's so much hazardous waste in the yard, I wouldn't feel comfortable."
The couple bought the house, which is surrounded by a white picket fence, from Michael Bresnahan in August 2005 for $858,420. Julie was 8 1/2 months pregnant when she learned that the yard she had landscaped about three months earlier was contaminated. The Gesners pulled their house off the market, moved, and tried to persuade Bresnahan to repurchase the property, for $100,000 less than what they paid.
"Because he owns a paving and excavation company, we tried to convince him that he could do the cleanup work himself and control the costs better than we could," David Gesner wrote in a blog the couple has set up about their situation. The couple sued when Bresnahan declined. The case has not yet gone to court.
The offer was rebuffed, said Bresnahan's lawyer, Orestes G. Brown, because the former owner could not afford to repurchase the property. "He was as surprised as they were," Brown said, to learn that the house, built between 2000 and 2001, was sitting on contaminated land, a site his family had owned for at least 30 years.
"Mike was raised on this property . . . [and] did not have any idea that this was a hazardous waste site," Brown said. "This is a town problem. I think that's clear."
Erin Ailworth can be reached at eailworth@globe.com. 