The ongoing monitoring of cancer-causing chemicals in the ground from when Whirlpool operated a manufacturing plant in Fort Smith shows that the pollution plume is shrinking. Some hot spots remain, according to the firm hired by Whirlpool to keep tabs on the problem.
The publicly-held appliance manufacturer closed the plant at 6400 Jenny Lind Road in June 2012, moving most production jobs to Mexico. One year later, officials with Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Whirlpool admitted to leaking trichloroethylene (TCE), a cancer-causing chemical, into properties north of the Fort Smith plant, which sat on 153 acres.
Copenhagen, Denmark-based Ramboll was hired by Whirlpool to monitor the pollution and provide remediation plans and information to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). The company began remediation in October 2015 with injection wells around what was then the known plume.
The most recent 456-page report is based on groundwater monitoring conducted in April 2022 with the collection of samples from wells in the plume. The report indicates a reduction of “constituents of concern,” or COCs. The report also noted that samples show a “natural attenuation of TCE is occurring via chemical, geochemical and biological mechanisms in areas of the southern, northern and northeastern plumes.”
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Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.orgP.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)