At the very top of Berkshire County lies one of its most distinctive road features – a mountainous hairpin turn 1,700 feet above the valley below.
“It’s a 180-degree turn," John Morris told WAMC. "It goes from in from the west, from North Adams, and you turn 180 degrees, it's in Clarksburg, Massachusetts, the next town over. And then as you complete the turn, it goes back into North Adams.”
The Golden Eagle Restaurant is perched at the apex of this distinctive stretch of Route 2 in the forested folds of the Hoosac Range. It’s a rustic yet homey place, with wood walls and a killer veal dish. And it’s been in the Morris family for generations.
But in recent years, things have taken a sharp turn.
Morris, who met his wife, Lori, when she first got a job at the Golden Eagle in 1983, now finds himself as the last steward of the mountaintop property that has been in his family for decades.
And that means he’s found himself fighting not just for his family’s business, but also his family’s health.
The saga traces back 43 years to a horrific truck accident that Morris remembers all too well. John had just turned what was his family’s gift shop business into what would become the Golden Eagle.
“It was my father's birthday, December 29th, that's why I remember the date so much," he said. "It was 1982. And I just handed him the birthday present, and I heard a rumbling. I looked out the window, and I see a wall of flame go right over the banking. And I picked up the phone, the phone was dead. And then I realized, everything's on fire. We have to get out.”
A Cumberland Farms truck had hurtled around the turn and crashed into a guardrail outside the restaurant, killing the driver and covering the Golden Eagle in flaming gasoline. John says the scene was apocalyptic.
“It was a huge blaze," he told WAMC. "They got the building out with water, and the driveway was on fire too. And then they rescued us from the mountaintop, and we got to walk through the driveway, and then we got near the where the truck was crashed and it was fully engulfed, and even the firemen- There was so many. And I saw them at one point, their hoses were on fire and they were running down the road because the gas was just spewing everywhere. It was getting in the culvert, and then it was exploding in the culvert, and it was like an earthquake. It was like all these all these senses happening all at once- Fire, the ground shaking, and we got away and watched the firemen put the foam on the on the tanker to put the gas fire out. There's no other way to do it. And we spent three hours watching them fight this fire. It was incredible, really incredible.”
Somehow, despite the horror of the disaster and extent of the damage, the Morris family rebuilt and didn’t think much more about the crash for decades. Really, they didn’t have reason to consider its impact until 2022. That’s when Massachusetts Department of Transportation officials made an unexpected visit. The commonwealth had already done some work on the property in 2007 to determine that road salt had been seeping into the restaurant’s well as a result of the unique location.
But now, state officials were worried about PFAS. Commonly called forever chemicals, these stubborn, human-made industrial substances are known to have devastating health consequences, such as causing cancers, reproductive issues, developmental delays, and compromising the immune system.
“They did the test, and then a month later, they came back and said they needed a second test, and I that's when I was got concerned," John Morris told WAMC. "And I come to find out, the PFAS level was so high, it's one of the highest in the state of Massachusetts, and there isn't much we could do for remediation on that. It's in the soil, it's in the water. I believe that the PFAS has taken the same path to our well as the salt has. And if it can get down 500 feet with the salt, that's got to be the way the PFAS is flowing too, and it's in the bedrock now. There's no way to really get it out of there.”
The Morris family, who live in the same building as the restaurant, had reason for major concern.
“We had one test was 993 parts per million, and the government says it should be no more than four," said John. "And our average is like 773 parts per million, so that we're 700 times over what the containment level is.”
The chemicals aren’t only in the soil and water.
“I’ve been talking to a doctor from Notre Dame that’s an expert in it, and he says, you need to really be monitored because our blood serum- He told me, the blood serum level of the average American would has PFAS in their blood is like .004," John continued. "And my test came back at .49 and Lori's came back at .31.”
While John and Lori are healthy for now, the potential impact of the PFAS inside their veins hangs over them.
The source of the PFAS in the Golden Eagle’s land and water?
Studies showed that the chemicals came from one of the very tools emergency responders used to save the building back in 1982 -- the foam that smothered the gas flames that threatened to incinerate the structure.
“We’re innocent victims," said John. "We've been here sitting on this corner, perched up high on a hill for all these years, and it was just unfortunate that that happened.”
But now they are fighting back.
“It feels terrible," Lori Morris told WAMC. "It's heart wrenching. I mean, we've put our whole life and soul into the restaurant, [we] work hard every day. [We were] looking forward to, someday we'll be retired. But it's heartbreaking to think that we've put all this hard work into building this empire, and all of a sudden, we have bad water at no fault of ours, and it's our fault. It's just- It's unfathomable.”
Since the PFAS bombshell, the commonwealth has allowed the restaurant to continue operating by only using well water for bathrooms and washing dishes.
Massachusetts says the Golden Eagle’s owners must clear their water supply of PFAS by 2027 despite having no responsibility for the contamination.
“It's a very sad situation to think that we're they're just going to take it from us- Again, with no fault of ours," said Lori. "All of a sudden now I'm going to lose my home, I'm going to lose my business. I have six years more years to work. I don't now, or I won't when this is settled. In the end, I don't honestly see there being a Golden Eagle Restaurant. And it’s sad.”
With the clock ticking, the Morris family is taking their case to court in a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Cumberland Farms, and Wabash National — the corporate successor to the Fruehauf Trailer Corporation, which manufactured the trailer involved in the crash.
All of the parties named in the suit declined to comment for this story.
“My clients are left with this massive cleanup and as well as harm to their health, harm to their property, harm to their business, and they really had no hand in this whatsoever,” said Elizabeth Zuckerman, the Morrises’ attorney.
The family is also seeking a reprieve from the Department of Environmental Protection.
“What they're looking for there is different than what they're looking for from Department of Transportation and the private parties," explained Zuckerman. "What they're looking for is a declaration which would say you don't have to be designated as what they've been basically designated by the state, as a waste disposal site, and you don't have to do all the things that the state says you have to do, including come up with an alternative water source.”
The Mass DEP declined to comment as well, citing pending litigation.
Zuckerman says John and Lori have exhausted their own efforts to solve a problem they did not cause.
“They're looking for some relief from the state requirements that they basically deal with this situation, because they didn't create it, and they have no meaningful way of dealing with it," she said. "They're going to come up with some solution, and they know they can't use the existing water supply- Like, that's for sure, but they can't be held responsible for dealing with the overall cleanup, because one, it's probably not possible, and two, it's certainly not their responsibility.”
John tells WAMC that Massachusetts has effectively stonewalled the restaurant, forcing him and Lori to use their own dwindling funds to prove that they’re not to blame for the situation.
“With all this going on, me and Lori have always saved money and for retirement and some retirement funds and everything," he said. "Well, I have to pay all these attorneys, the environmental people, and everything. It's wiping us out. All our retirement's gone now. Pretty much there's nothing- There's going to be nothing left for us after all these years we put in into work and to be a stable type of retirement.”
The Morrises don’t have any kids, but they had a succession plan for the Golden Eagle. But now, with test after test confirming the depths of the Golden Eagle’s contamination problem and no clear plan to clean up the water supply, they are staring down an ever-approaching deadline with less and less time, money, and hope.
MORRIS: Our dreams were to retire slowly. We’re healthy, and we're still a few years, six years from the retirement age. But Lori and I were slowly going to back out work less and less and less, and the staff we have is incredible. And I have a cook, he's a sous chef. He's been here- He started at 16, he's 43. It's pretty much his, and that's what I'd like to see, but it ain't gonna happen.
WAMC: You wanted to see it continue?
MORRIS: Yeah, yeah. Lori and I don't have any children, so he's like a son, and he runs it just like I do, it because he's been here with me so long he can do it all. And with all the reports that we have paid for to prove our innocence when we never did anything, and they're so bleak, I don't know if the property can be saved.
