From about 1950 to the early 1970s, the site ABM Disposal Company paid Wade $1.00 to $1.50 per
55-gallon drum to store industrial waste on his property. ABM Disposal was not regulated by the state and had a long criminal record of dumping abuses in the Philadelphia area. and eventually had 20,000 drums and 20 tank trucks full of chemical waste on the site. More than 3 million gallons of
cyanide,
benzene,
toluene, sodium
copper(I) cyanide,
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other chemicals were stored on the site along with thousands of tires. The fire was extinguished after 20 hours but rekindled twice in the ensuing days. First responders to the fire experienced many health problems in subsequent years, including several deaths from rare cancers. Cancer rates of firemen at the fire or cleanup were five to six times the norm.
Cleanup In late 1981 and early 1982, the EPA conducted two emergency cleanups in which workers removed an estimated 5,000 gallons of
PCB-contaminated waste, 10,000 gallons of other hazardous wastes for incineration and 155 tons of contaminated solids. In 2012,
Stefan Roots published a book titled
Toxic Man - the Melvin Wade Story. ==See also==