06/30/2023
This is a comment that I posted on a community page. I was tired of reading misinformation in the comments. Now perhaps the graffiti will make more sense ☮️
The leak happened 40 years ago. The Barkers(my parent in-laws) bought the business 38 years ago not knowing about the leak. The Barkers owned the buildings and the house, but the land is owned and leased by the port.The leaky tanks were replaced 38 years ago, but the ground remained soiled. Strange that it was ok for the port to continue leasing a contaminated site to a family. Strange that my father in law died of multiple myeloma 8 years ago. Strange that multiple myeloma is caused by overexposure to gasoline. My father in law lived in the store house for years drinking and bathing in the contaminated water. As did my husband and the rest of his family. Had we known all of this sooner we could have sued but after 3 years we could not. My husband and I began running the store seven years ago- a year after my father in laws death. The store was being mismanaged and we came here to help straighten it up. At that time, we had no idea a cleanup would be happening. We moved into the store house and began making a life here. Renovating the house, improving the store, etc. We changed out the water lines immediately as you could taste and smell the gasoline in the water. We ran the water lines above ground to avoid further water contamination. We began buying the store from my mother- in- law. 2 years in the port sent us a letter demanding we move out of our house stating that in 2020 a cleanup would take place, our home and business would be torn down, and that they wouldn’t renew our lease….ever. Strange they sent this letter 3 years after my father in laws death, just after the correct timeframe to have sued the port. That is when people probably began to notice changes around the store - things would break and we’d neglect to fix them( we refused to fix that darned door). We slowly let the store fall apart because there was no reason to put money into a dying business. As 2020 neared the port extended out our lease for another year, and then another, and then another. So, for five years we ran the whale into the ground…. It was a sad whale. It was really hard, and sometimes embarrassing, and no-one understood- they just thought we were mismanaging the place. We quit renovating the house obviously. The port was then awarded 1.3 million dollars to clean up the spill. Not only did we lose our business with its amazing location, we also had to pay out Chevron a lot of $ for closing our contract early and paid a lot of money to move the store house to a different location. Our family has been fortunate to be an integral part of the fishing community in Westport for decades-supplying fresh and frozen bait to the sport fishermen and the charter fleet. We’ve been blessed by decades of patronage from the Ocean Companies and The Shipyard. We will miss our store so much, but more so our community. We love the people of Westport and appreciate the 38 years of support we have received . Sadly the big fish ate the little fish in this situation. Shame on you BIG fish. Its a sad world we live in when this can happen to hard working people unnecessarily.
We will be opening up a new store(hopefully in July)on the corner of Ocean and Forest- In the old Shellflair Museum. Hope to see y’all there❤️
Come to The Hungry Whale for bait, tackle, gasoline, propane, crab pot rentals, breakfast, hot deli food, cold deli food, boat lunches, ice and more!
