By FRANK TUTALO
Sun Staff

WILMINGTON -- Starting May 1, a privately contracted environmental company will remove some 20 truckloads of hazardous waste-ridden soil and crushed barrels from an area off the end of McDonald Road.

But whether the undisclosed company takes away animal hides and piggery waste from former piggery owner John Kunigenas' property, too, remains uncertain.

Project manager Eric Hultstrom, of the Dedham-based Woodard & Curran engineering firm, told the Conservation Commission last night workers will be in the area for two weeks during normal working hours, under the on-site supervision of Gary Lipson, an engineer with the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

"Now that it's been found, we have to get it out of there," Hultstrom said. "That's the important part."

After asking several questions, and hearing numerous concerns from residents, the commission unanimously approved an "emergency certificate" that enables work to start immediately. Although no plans have been brought forward yet, town officials speculate Kunigenas is taking on the cleanup because he has a developer waiting in the wings.

Hultstrom faced numerous questions from some 15 residents who aired instant concerns about the waste and its effects on their health. Unearthing the waste, then transporting it past their houses, could pose health problems for families, they claimed.

"This will be within feet of my house," McDonald Road resident Melinda Warren said. "So now I have to be concerned about closing the windows, too?"

Commission Chairman James Morris questioned how contractors will know when all the waste has been cleaned entirely. Others inquired about what will happen to animal hides found there last summer.

"That material will be removed only if it is adjacent to drums, or it shows up in places where we have high levels of contamination," Hultstrom responded. "That may be more of a future issue."

Hultstrom says 500 cubic yards of soil will be removed from four small, distinct areas of the 52-acre parcel, then temporarily stored on site, before being trucked off somewhere for proper disposal. Cleanup crews have as long as 90 days to remove all materials from the site.

"Chemically it didn't come up that bad," Hultstrom said.

Citing statistics, residents countered his claim, though. Resident Suzanne Sullivan noted that in several places chemicals were exponentially higher than federal limits allow.

"That's a lot more than minimal," she emphasized.

In a surprise move early last month, Kunigenas agreed with the state Department of Environmental Protection to clean the contaminated property.

A town property record to the vacant property lists Kunigenas, who now resides in Florida, as the current owner; the address is a post office box in Boston bearing the name of Robert Kunigenas. The land is appraised at $312,600, tax records state.

Since a wide-ranging investigation of the immediate area kicked off last summer, state and federal environmental officials have found an estimated 200 decayed 55-gallon drums on property believed to belong to Kunigenas, both buried on the surface. Another 100 have been unearthed on property owned by Krochmal Farms, and roughly another 100 were found in the Rocco landfill, a quarter-mile away.