FORT WAYNE – Kathryn Mbwelera stands in her front yard, despite the blazing heat, pointing across the street to where the ground is filled with poison.

“Nobody’s going to make me believe I’m not at risk and that I haven’t been at risk,” Mbwelera says. “The health risks these chemicals pose – we’ve experienced them all.”

The chemicals are chlorinated solvents that are in the soil and groundwater beneath the former Wayne Metal Protection plant, a defunct metal plating company at 1511 Wabash Ave. on the east side of the city near Memorial Park.

The contamination has spread northeast from the shuttered plant, toward Memorial Park Middle School; Mbwelera’s house is immediately north of the plant.

The chemicals move easily in groundwater, and their vapors can move upward through soil into homes and buildings.

Exposure to them has been linked to numerous health problems, including spontaneous abortions; menstrual disorders; altered sperm structure and reduced fertility; effects on the brain and nervous system and liver, kidney and immune system; miscarriages; and developmental problems. They may also be linked to a variety of cancers, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Mbwelera, 50, has lived in the house next to the plant, with the exception of just a few years, since she was 12 years old.

Her mother, who died in November, had kidney problems. Her brother has liver and lung problems. She has severe menstrual problems. The house she and her brother Irving Brownlee inherited when their mother died, she fears, is worthless thanks to the toxic mess next door.

But that’s not what really bothers her. The real slap, she says, is that not only has the Indiana Department of Environmental Management known about the contamination for almost six years and done almost nothing, but that officials have never seen fit to tell her about the contamination.

In 2008, IDEM ran a legal advertisement in The Journal Gazette announcing that the company had submitted a cleanup plan. Last week, it ran another small announcement saying it had approved the plan and declaring a 30-day comment period.

Legal ads are one column wide and run in small type; that is the only official notification Mbwelera and her neighbors are required to get.

“That’s an insult,” Mbwelera said. “That’s a real insult.”

IDEM officials say there was no need to inform Mbwelera because the contamination is not under her property and her family has nothing to fear.

“I think if this contamination was right at the property boundary or if there was any doubt of exposure, they’d be contacted,” said Cory Webb, a senior environmental manager at IDEM. “But there’s a pretty good distance between the edge of the plume and the home.”

‘Aggressive plan’

The saga began almost six years ago, when the company reported the contamination to IDEM and applied to be in the state’s voluntary cleanup program.

That program is supposed to speed cleanups without lawsuits and bureaucracy, but a 2007 Journal Gazette investigation showed the program is beset with delays and backlogs. The laws creating the program call for a cleanup plan within six months; the newspaper showed it takes an average of four years to get one.

Even by those standards, Wayne Metal Protection stood out – the company so often missed IDEM deadlines, it was kicked out of the voluntary program in 2008, giving IDEM a much stronger hand in guiding the cleanup.

Even then, IDEM continued to push back deadlines, and Wayne Metal Protection continued to miss them. Now, four years and four months after it was first due, a cleanup plan has been approved, and IDEM says it’s a good one.

“It’s a very aggressive plan, probably one of the more aggressive plans I’ve seen,” Webb said. He could not offer an estimate on how long the process will take, but it will not be quick or inexpensive.

The plan calls for the removal of contaminated soil from seven areas of the plant property. Also, wells will be dug to draw out and treat the groundwater, and to draw vapors from the soil. Webb said the plan will require a treatment facility to be built on-site to handle the chemicals drawn out of the soil and water.

Wayne Metal Protection owner Daniel Clemens declined to comment on the plan but said officials remain committed to their pledge to remove all of the contamination.

Webb said IDEM’s first priority is health and safety.

“(The plume) does not go under any residential areas or near them, so there’s no reason for residents to be concerned,” Webb said. “In any situation where we think there’s an exposure pathway or a potential for residential exposure, that’s our first concern.”

‘A mistake’

Mbwelera said that just because IDEM does not feel she’s in danger is no reason to leave her in the dark.

After reading newspaper stories about the contamination, her mother began buying bottled water, spending hundreds of dollars of her fixed income because she was afraid her water was polluted. It was only months later that someone explained that because she has city water, her home’s water supply was perfectly safe.

IDEM officials said she should have called them.

“We’re always available to help people with information if they’re not receiving it,” IDEM spokeswoman Amy Hartsock said. “We’re here to answer questions if they’ve got them.”

Just a stone’s throw from the Wayne Metal Protection site is the Hassan Barrel site. Hassan Barrel’s owner, Alan Hersh, served a 15-month sentence in federal prison for closing the barrel recycler in 2003 and leaving behind thousands of barrels filled with toxic chemicals.

That site, also discovered in 2004, was cleaned up in 2009 – overseen by the EPA rather than IDEM.

Mbwelera said her mother was offered $90,000 for her house and its two extra lots several years ago, before the contamination was reported. She wishes now they had accepted the offer.

“That land is probably worthless now … ain’t nobody going to buy toxic land,” she said. “I think I made a mistake.”

dstockman@jg.net