A nonprofit group that monitors toxic waste sites says most pollution comes from small sources, such as homes and mom-and-pop stores, not big industrial Superfund sites.
The Toxics Action Center in January published a town-by-town list that identified more than 14-hundred hazardous sites in Vermont. It showed that 90 percent or more of them resulted from spills and leaks of gasoline, kerosene and home heating oil at service stations, mom-and-pop stores, small businesses and individual homes.
The Burlington Free Press says Mary Dillon of Richmond knows about those leaks. In February, she discovered her 275-gallon kerosene tank was empty – just three weeks after it had been filled. The culprit: a tiny hole in the bottom of the tank. A four-week, $10,000 cleanup required excavation of 50 tons of frozen, contaminated dirt.