I am proud to unveil a new nonprofit, registered with the State of Massachusetts, the MA Attorney General, and with any luck, soon recognized by the Federal Government as a 501c3 nonprofit, designed to help Middleboro. Let me tell you a little about it, me, and the nonprofit’s namesake.

My name is Rich, and while I’ve been scouring the internet, social media, and speaking to people about PFAS and environmental contaminants, one name has continued to pop up. Sometimes it is, “You know who you would have loved to talk to?”, and sometimes it is, “If he were still here, he’d be able to tell you right away.”

Vic Sylvia.

I had heard his name so many times that I had forgotten if I was searching for PFAS, or searching for the trail Vic left for the next person to follow. I knew him as "Jane’s family", and although we had talked about his town service, I had never asked the right questions to understand just what his “town service” looked like. But in the circles I was now entering, this man was a legend and a hero, and you know what? The historical record proves that was not hyperbole. Google him!

“I was with him for a few hours before he went to bed and passed away. He was aware that his end was approaching, and despite his struggles, he wanted to impart as much knowledge to me as possible before he passed away.” Wally Glendye, local volunteer and friend to Vic.

About half way through 2024 when the group I’m working with, Citizens for a Healthy Middleboro, started seriously thinking about what our next steps would be, someone mentioned Rockland Industries, an old superfund site in North Middleboro, at 255 Plymouth Street. The superfund site was very intriguing to me because I have lived through one of those in my hometown of Holbrook.

“Victor was a “pit bull” when it came to the environment and the damage being done to it. Victor's stories went on for months, and they got me really angry, so I got involved.” Wally G.

On the surface, it felt unrelated to PFAS though, I thought, so I didn’t want to take a left turn toward Rockland [ind] until a connection could prove that it was in the same direction as PFAS - one thing at a time! It turns out that this was one of the places in our town that Victor cut his teeth on environmental research and activism, and had a direct impact in cleanup efforts. Through his efforts, the site was investigated and addressed to the best of current technology and regulations. A large victory for the town, but just 1 of many for Victor in this space of environmental health.

"When my sister married his son, I had no idea that becoming family with Victor meant I would be compelled into a life filled with public service... But his energy, (and sometimes even his outrage), was contagious. I still think of him at every meeting I attend, and every cause I choose to champion. His legacy is never ending." Jane Tsoumas

It turns out that I was confused, and I didn’t need to align my path to Rockland Industries to walk along with Victor, and as if from beyond the grave, he began to walk with me through stories from his friends, newspaper articles, the Middleboro Public Library... but I needed to see it for what it was: a lighthouse in the dark pointing the way to the breadcrumbs he left for someone else to follow, or maybe better yet, a guidebook on how to pick up his torch and continue where he left off.

“Victor loved the people of the town of Middleboro and was a town activist for most of his life. Victor’s greatest accomplishments may have happened in the last few months of his life with the forming of the Massachusetts ALS registry and the Citizens Environmental Health Impact Committee.” Wally

Without further ado, I present:

The Victor Sylvia Fund to Reduce Environmental Toxicity

The goals of this nonprofit are as follows:

1) Investigation - Funds raised will in part go to equipment, consumables, and 3rd party testing services to investigate potential contamination that could lead to negative effects on humans and our environment.

2) Education - Funds raised will in part go to acquiring, synthesizing, and presenting data to educate the public about reducing environmental toxicity that harms humans and our environment.

3) Advocacy - Funds raised will in part go to providing local, state, and federal decision makers with information regarding contamination, related health effects, and methods to reduce the toxicity of our environment.

4) Remediation - The primary purposes for this organization are encapsulated within items 1 thru 3. However, if innovative methods can be used to remediate toxicity, funds raised can be used either directly by the Organization, or to make grants to individuals or organizations to develop, purchase, or deploy those methods, given that this expenditure does not rise above 33% of the Organization's annual budget, as a way to maintain the primary purpose of the Organization.

To launch, we have an ambitious goal to raise $10,000 that will provide testing kits necessary for the boring but critical retest of the Nemasket, as well as an expansion of our testing effort across town, and also the beginning of a small citizen testing lab that can handle basic tests in a clean environment, as well as long term storage of water samples for a time when we can perform more expensive tests locally, or send them out for more advanced testing.

Investigation/Testing Goals

Goal 1) Investigate - Launch goal to raise $3,550 to complete Phase 1 and begin Phase 2

!!Thanks to Chris Van, John Barella, Rob McCarey, Jess Chartoff, Matt Phillips, Stacey Osborne, and Heather Kundzicz for funding the first phase of the Nemasket River study!!

Phase 1) Initial river testing - Complete
- Theories from this round (NOTE: tests must be repeated before we feel comfortable with them)
  - Middleboro Wastewater Treatment Plant is a primary contributor of Nemasket River PFAS
  - There is a modest amount of PFOS and PFOA coming from somewhere upstream of the Nemasket confluence on the Taunton river.
  - There is a small, unexplained spike in PFAS somewhere between Star Mill and the Nemasket Hill Cemetery on the Nemasket river
  - The Assawompsett Pond at the Nemasket Dam has a relatively low PFAS result, but an interesting mix of PFAS chemicals. Long Pond has a PFAS fish advisory; is it coming from there, or elsewhere?

Results: This phase gave us several interesting insights into testing methods, materials, processes, and of course beautiful views of Middleboro from the water. With some lessons learned, we must now retest these locations to ensure the reproducibility of the data before we trust it to form any hypotheses.

Phase 1a) Launch Goal, $1600, 23 tests - River retest - we will retest all 21 locations that were originally tested, combined with some upgrades in equipment and testing methodology to reduce room for human error.
Phase 1b) Launch Goal, $400, 5 tests - Investigate Upstream - Because of the increase in PFOS (+4 up to 6ppt) and PFOA (+2 up to 4ppt) when the Nemasket meets the Taunton River, we should test further upstream to learn where this begins.
Phase 1c) Launch Goal, $0 (included in Goal 2) - Investigate Acidic Nemasket Phenomenon - Why is the Nemasket river showing very low pH numbers, with the lowest being 2.43 (too low for frogs, fish, or turtles, as an example), and hovering between 2 and 4 for most of 2024 and 2025. This is unexplained according to the local testing organization. We aim to investigate it.
Phase 2) Launch Goal, $1600, 23 tests - Expand Surface Water Testing - If we can meet our fundraising goal, we can increase the scope of our testing to form a loose grid of sorts throughout Middleboro, searching through the watersheds of the various ponds. We can use this information to try to find the source(s) of the contamination we’ve seen evidence for in the vicinity of the East Grove well, the Tispaquin well, and the Mizaras well.

Goal 2) Build testing capacity and reduce testing prices for citizen and citizen science projects in Middleboro. Launch Goal, $6,400

With this goal, we have prepared a budget to build a basic, upstart citizen science lab with testing equipment, and partnership with local academic institutions to teach citizens to measure basic parameters in environmental samples in a repeatable, and scientific way.
The laboratory’s name comes from a myth that describes a misunderstanding of early aerodynamic calculations, which, when applied to bumblebees, suggested their wings were too small to fly. However, bumblebees do fly, and their flight is explained by advanced understanding of aerodynamics, including the creation of vortices (mini-hurricanes) by their wings.

Reality is not just what we can see with our naked eye. Public Science is Public Health.

Picking up Vic's Torch - Investigating Local Contamination

By The Victor Sylvia Fund to Reduce Environmental Toxicity

Picking up Vic's Torch - Investigating Local Contamination

We will dramatically scale up water testing, and start a public science lab. Help us make it happen!

Team Members