Victory at last for beleaguered Liane Dunn


CORNWALL — A two-and-a-half year nightmare may have finally come to an end for Liane Dunn, the Cornwall Bridge woman whose property was the site of an extensive underground fuel tank cleanup.

A settlement out of court ends her dispute with a contractor hired to conduct the cleanup that had been ordered by the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

An investigation into a bill from Environmental Management Services Inc. (EMSI) of Prospect, Conn., that amounted to more than $194,000 uncovered numerous questionable and excessive charges. As a result, EMSI has withdrawn its claim for most of the unpaid balance.

Just as important for Dunn, she feels it validates her accusations of fraud against EMSI and General Manager Rick Ragaini.

Dunn originally paid $55,000 from her savings, trying to keep ahead of a bill that continued to mount as an eventual 1,000 tons of soil was removed. She sought a reverse mortgage on her home and the building that houses her business, The Rock Shop. That process was delayed and the two parties wound up in court. Dunn was ordered to pay EMSI half of what she finally got for a mortgage. EMSI got $65,000. The other $65,000 was put in escrow awaiting a trial on Dunn’s countersuit.

Since then, Dunn received reimbursement from the DEP’s Underground Storage Tank Petroleum Cleanup Account.

After traveling to Hartford to tell her story in person, the DEP moved Dunn up to the top of a list of about 1,200 applicants. She was recently reimbursed what she paid EMSI.

She also got back a large portion of the escrowed funds, plus interest, based on charges that were ruled invalid or exorbitant by the cleanup fund commission. It has allowed her to pay back the loan, and reimburse some of the savings she planned to retire on.

"They actually took a vote to expedite my application," Dunn told The Journal. "The vote was unanimous."


Inherited a tainted site


The cleanup came about 20 years after Dunn’s father died. He had operated a gas station on the site for decades. Years after it closed, the DEP began seeking out steel underground tanks that would likely rust and leak.

When Liane and her husband, Monte Dunn, looked for a specialized contractor to remove the tank, they were given a list of 20 contractors by the DEP.

Their incorrect assumption was that these were sanctioned by the state agency. EMSI was the only contractor that returned their call. They later discovered the DEP makes no recommendations. It also has no oversight about how contractors operate. Their inspectors determine only that the work is properly done.

Dunn’s attorney, Bill Barrante, told The Journal the bill clearly shows Ragaini overcharged them and also falsified items on the extensive bill.

"I had two of his former workers waiting to testify that he charged for labor for them when they weren’t even on the site. He made a huge profit on things like rental equipment and soil processing fees that he should have just passed along," Barrante said. "What he did was unethical and criminal. Liane may have agreed to what he was charging, but she really didn’t have any choice, or know what a fair price would be."

What remains unclear is how the ethics of the situation will pan out. EMSI is licensed, but who has oversight?

It came out at a meeting in August of 2005 in Cornwall that the DEP offers courses that lead to a license in the specialized cleanup. In fact, a DEP official noted Ragaini was an instructor for the licensing class.

The investigation of the EMSI bill was conducted by the cleanup fund division, but only goes as far as determining what charges are legitimate.

The Department of Consumer Protection collects complaints, but can’t pull a contractor’s license, Barrante said. After researching the case, he is not sure if anyone can, or if it will make a difference.

"He could go out of state and work, or work without a license. Who would know?"

A call to the DEP official in charge of the investigation was not returned.

While Dunn, now 80 and with failing eyesight, may finally look forward to a well-deserved retirement, the ending is far from a happy one. This past April, after struggling with numerous ailments and depression, her husband took his own life.

Latest News

South Kent School’s unofficial March reunion

Elmarko Jackson was named a 2023 McDonald’s All American in his senior year at South Kent School. He helped lead the Cardinals to a New England Prep School Athletic Conference (NEPSAC) AAA title victory and was recruited to play at the University of Kansas. This March he will play point guard for the Jayhawks when they enter the tournament as a No. 4 seed against (13) Samford University.

Riley Klein

SOUTH KENT — March Madness will feature seven former South Kent Cardinals who now play on Division 1 NCAA teams.

The top-tier high school basketball program will be well represented with graduates from each of the past three years heading to “The Big Dance.”

Keep ReadingShow less
Hotchkiss grads dancing with Yale

Nick Townsend helped Yale win the Ivy League.

Screenshot from ESPN+ Broadcast

LAKEVILLE — Yale University advanced to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament after a buzzer-beater win over Brown University in the Ivy League championship game Sunday, March 17.

On Yale’s roster this year are two graduates of The Hotchkiss School: Nick Townsend, class of ‘22, and Jack Molloy, class of ‘21. Townsend wears No. 42 and Molloy wears No. 33.

Keep ReadingShow less
Handbells of St. Andrew’s to ring out Easter morning

Anne Everett and Bonnie Rosborough wait their turn to sound notes as bell ringers practicing to take part in the Easter morning service at St. Andrew’s Church.

Kathryn Boughton

KENT—There will be a joyful noise in St. Andrew’s Church Easter morning when a set of handbells donated to the church some 40 years ago are used for the first time by a choir currently rehearsing with music director Susan Guse.

Guse said that the church got the valuable three-octave set when Harlem Valley Psychiatric Center closed in the late 1980s and the bells were donated to the church. “The center used the bells for music therapy for younger patients. Our priest then was chaplain there and when the center closed, he brought the bells here,” she explained.

Keep ReadingShow less
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Picasso’s American debut was a financial flop
Penguin Random House

‘Picasso’s War” by Foreign Affairs senior editor Hugh Eakin, who has written about the art world for publications like The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and The New York Times, is not about Pablo Picasso’s time in Nazi-occupied Paris and being harassed by the Gestapo, nor about his 1937 oil painting “Guernica,” in response to the aerial bombing of civilians in the Basque town during the Spanish Civil War.

Instead, the Penguin Random House book’s subtitle makes a clearer statement of intent: “How Modern Art Came To America.” This war was not between military forces but a cultural war combating America’s distaste for the emerging modernism that had flourished in Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Keep ReadingShow less