Little Pink House_ A True Story of Defiance and Courage - Jeff Benedict [21]
“You like antiques?” Susette asked.
An hour later, they were still talking. Susette finally introduced herself to Tim LeBlanc, a forty-year-old bachelor who lived alone about twenty miles from New London. Besides collecting antiques for a hobby, LeBlanc worked as a professional landscaper. His specialty was stonework.
Susette told him she was in the hunt for some antiques and wanted to have some raised flower beds put in around her house. LeBlanc offered to help, and he invited her to visit his place and check out his antiques collection. She accepted.
It didn’t take long for Jim Serbia and his team to complete the analysis Milne had requested on the mill site. The picture wasn’t pretty. Environmentally, the ground beneath and around the site had the signs of being a toxic dump. At a minimum, tons of hazardous soil would have to be excavated and removed. New soil would have to be trucked in.
Legally, the polluted land posed a bigger challenge. Once taking over the site, Pfizer could become liable for any environmental problems that surfaced in the future. The only way to fully protect against future claims would be to get the state to indemnify Pfizer, a highly unlikely proposition. There was no precedent for the state’s assuming environmental liability on behalf of a corporation.
Beyond these hurdles, the mill site presented problems that were completely outside Pfizer’s ability to solve. First, the city-owned sewage-treatment plant bordered one side of the property. In addition to emitting a terrible odor that would regularly overwhelm the mill site, the plant needed upgrades and modifications to make it more environmentally safe and aesthetically appealing.
Second, a huge scrap-metal junkyard abutted another border of the mill property. A terrible eyesore, the junkyard also made access to the mill site nearly impossible.
Third, the city’s infrastructure around the site—from roads to utilities—was nowhere near sufficient to support a state-of-the-art, global research facility. On top of all this, the site failed to satisfy the primary immediate need for more lab space. The city’s infrastructure wasn’t capable of handling all the effluent that would be produced in the animal laboratories. New London barely had sufficient sewage capacity for its residents as it was.
The site had one final, overarching deficiency: size. The number one criterion on Pfizer’s wish list was that the land had to be big enough for future expansion. Anything under a hundred acres was too small. The mill site consisted of just twenty-four acres.
By every vital criterion at the time, the New London site failed the test. New London was the absolute worst choice for Pfizer.
The detailed analysis that Serbia’s team provided was in stark contrast to Claire’s assessment of the site. She preferred to focus on the possibilities, not the drawbacks. And she had a much grander perspective than the singular needs of a corporation. That was immediately clear to Phil Michalowski, a leading land-use design expert working as a private consultant for Pfizer. At Pfizer’s request, Michalowski helped prepare some land-use concept plans for the area around the mill site. He also started meeting with Claire.
“I remember discussions with Claire,” Michalowski said. “It starts out as a global picture. Think of the Web site Google Earth—it’s a mapping program that starts with the globe and works down to New London. That’s the way Claire’s mind works.” He continued, “I was trying to focus on physical land-use issues in New London. She was looking at the status of the state economy for the next hundred years and trying to use the project as a mechanism to steer resources to educational and social service in the city. Early on she was trying to make those connections. I lauded those ideas.”
The more Claire and Milne talked about Claire’s vision, the more Milne began to laud her ideas too. And by helping the city, Pfizer could also benefit. The possibilities