[CPEO-BIF] "More wells required to better test Whirlpool pollution, " Fort Smith, Arkansas

[Lenny Siegel <Lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

ADEQ: More wells required to better test Whirlpool pollution


by Michael Tilley 
Talk Business and Politics (AR)
August 25, 2025 

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) is asking an engineering firm hired by Whirlpool to install more cancer-causing chemical monitoring wells around the former Whirlpool plant in Fort Smith.

Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Whirlpool closed its refrigerator manufacturing plant at 6400 Jenny Lind Road in June 2012, moving most production jobs to Mexico. In 2013, and after public pressure, Whirlpool officials admitted to leaking trichloroethylene (TCE), a cancer-causing chemical, into properties around 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 plumes. 

Other dangerous chemicals monitored include vinyl chloride and a cDCE, a form of dichloroethene.
Rambolli noted in its 2024 report, which was made available in February, that there were no risks to the public.

…

For the entire article, see
https://talkbusiness.net/2025/08/adeq-more-wells-required-to-better-test-whirlpool-pollution/

—

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.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)




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