Cheryl Buteaux grew up in Toms River, New Jersey, a community famous for its discharge of chemicals and abnormally high cancer in children. The move to Pennsylvania years later, she found what she thought was a safe haven.Heather seemed perfectly valley, surrounded by a new development of arable land in Richland Township, Bucks County. In December 2000, Cheryl and Norman Buteaux, with three children of 1, 4 and 6, a constant $ 164000 four-bedroom home.
But the pastoral landscape, a surprise.
On the farm Watson-Johnson later, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency already had a year to a survey of 32 hectares of landfill, where 3200 tonnes of lead, PCBs and other chemicals were buried secretly in 1960.
Nobody - not the developers, estate agents or estimating the expert - told the family of toxic cache about a quarter mile at home. Legally, nobody should.
Under a law of the PA, that the Buteauxs and others hope, change, sellers are not required to disclose, unless the contamination is in the lot. In a country where the EPO has 567 sites of hazardous materials - 271 in Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks and Chester counties - the burden of proof lies with the buyer to find dangers lurking beyond the property .