Whirlpool’s solvent in groundwater riles neighbors

This stretch of Jacobs Avenue — a quiet, older neighborhood in south Fort Smith — is closest to the former Whirlpool plant that closed last summer and left a legacy of hazardous chemical contamination.
This stretch of Jacobs Avenue — a quiet, older neighborhood in south Fort Smith — is closest to the former Whirlpool plant that closed last summer and left a legacy of hazardous chemical contamination.

— People living just north of the former Whirlpool Corp. manufacturing plant are angry that a hazardous chemical that leaked from the plant years ago has seeped into the groundwater under their homes, raising fears of health risks and damage to property values.

They also are upset that the company, which has known about the contamination for at least 11 years, waited until January to inform the neighborhood that the large pool, or plume, of trichloroethylene, commonly known as TCE, is beneath their homes.

A Wednesday statement from Whirlpool said the company informed the appropriate authorities about the contamination and issued a statement to the media in 2001.

The Environmental Protection Agency characterized trichloroethylene as “carcinogenic to humans and as a human noncancer health hazard,” according to a Sept.28, 2011, news release.

It stated that trichloroethylene is one of the most common man-made chemicals found in the environment, and is a volatile chemical and widely used solvent.

“Frequently found at Superfund sites across the country, TCE’s movement from contaminated groundwater and soil into the indoor air of overlying buildings is of serious concern,” the release stated.

But residents of the neighborhood and others say the revelation has taken them by surprise. Only five of the approximately 35 neighborhood residents that Whirlpool notified showed up for a Jan. 10 meeting during which company representatives disclosed the contamination.

“I’m angry. I’m livid at this point,” said Debbie Keith of 1804 Jacobs Ave. who lives in the affected neighborhood and was one of the five who attended the meeting. “My great-grandfather built [the home], and I’ve always lived on this street.”

Keith said she believes that residents didn’t attend the meeting because a notice from Whirlpool said it was about company plans to ask Fort Smith city directors to pass an ordinance banning drilling of water wells in the neighborhood. The notice made no mention of trichloroethylene contaminated groundwater, she said.

Fort Smith Director of Development Services Wally Bailey said the city first learned of the trichloroethylene contamination last summer when Whirlpool officials made the request to his office for the ordinance.

Another resident of the neighborhood who attended the meeting, Ethel Fowler of 1504 Jacobs Ave., said she wonders what effect trichloroethylene could have on her health and that of her husband, Wayne, and her three grandchildren who visit often. She said she’s reluctant to let the children play in her yard and is considering not allowing them to visit anymore.

“Now, if my heart skips a beat, do I have to think, ‘do I have something?’” she asked.

Whirlpool has been working with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality since 2002 to clean up the contaminated groundwater. So far, the company’s efforts have failed.

Representatives for Whirlpool told Fort Smith directors in a Feb. 12 study session that the ground at Whirlpool was contaminated with trichloroethylene, a degreaser used by the company from 1967-81 to clean metal refrigerator parts before assembly.

Whirlpool discovered that trichloroethylene had leaked from an underground storage tank when workers dug up the tank to remove it in 1989, said Gregory Gillespie, an official with Environ, an international environmental consulting firm working for Whirlpool on the trichloroethylene contamination. Gillespie provided the information Thursday to Fort Smith city directors in response to their requests to learn more about the contamination.

At the time the spill was discovered, it was confined to the Whirlpool property, Gillespie wrote. By 2001, it was found to have spread off-site into the neighboring residential area to the north of the company property. At that point, the company notified the Environmental Quality Department about the contamination, he said.

Whirlpool signed a letter of agreement with the agency in 2002 to clean up the contamination. After years of monitoring and planning, the company attempted to pump out the trichloroethylene-contaminated groundwater from April 2010 to April 2012 but could not because of the density of the soil, according to the department.

Whirlpool then introduced a chemical into the groundwater in an attempt to neutralize the trichloroethylene, the department stated, but the impermeability of the soil thwarted that attempt, as well.

Because of the failure to remove the contaminated groundwater, the company has asked Fort Smith to pass the ordinance banning the drilling of water wells in the area.

City directors were to consider the ordinance at their meeting at 6 p.m. Tuesday. At the request Friday of City Director Keith Lau and agreed to by the other six city directors, consideration of the ordinance has been rescheduled for March 27.

The proposed ordinance would ban well drilling on Whirlpool property and the area north of Ingersoll Avenue, west of Jenny Lind Road, east of Ferguson Street and south of Brazil Avenue.

There are no water wells in the neighborhood now, and all the residences have city water service.

Lau, responding to an email sent to the seven city directors seeking comment, said he opposes the ordinance and called the proposed well-drilling ban a “‘do nothing’ solution to a toxic contamination of their plant site and surrounding properties.”

City Director Andre Good said he favored the ordinance as a way to protect residents in the neighborhood from ingesting the groundwater, but it does not release Whirlpool from any responsibility of dealing with the chemical plume or with neighbors’ questions of liability.

City Directors Philip Merry, George Catsavis, Pam Weber and Mike Lorenz said they were undecided about the ordinance. Merry and Weber said they were continuing to study the issue. Catsavis and Lorenz said they had unanswered questions.

“I am being contacted by numerous constituents on both sides of the suggested ordinance,” Merry wrote.

The Department of Environmental Quality says banning water well drilling is an appropriate response for the company to address the contamination.

But in a Jan. 22 letter to Whirlpool, department engineer Mostafa Mehran stated that “efforts toward determining and implementing effective remediation should continue in lieu of relying solely on institutional controls.” The well-drilling ban ordinance “may not be used to eliminate remedial options.”

The letter noted that the concentration of trichloroethylene exceeds state standards and that the plume continues to move.

Department spokesman Katherine Benenati said last month that the level of trichloroethylene in the contaminated soil has been measured at 29,000 parts per billion. The state standard, she said, is 5 parts per billion.

The department ordered Whirlpool in the Jan. 22 letter to evaluate additional on-site remedies to stop the plume’s spread.

Whirlpool and the department say the contaminated groundwater is harmful only if ingested. Whirlpool provided a report to city directors at the Feb. 12 study session that it had told neighbors in January that the symptoms of trichloroethylene exposure are dizziness, drowsiness and rash but only at “very high levels, well above the levels at this site.”

A statement issued by Whirlpool on Feb. 27 about the health risks associated with trichloroethylene said the company requested passage of the ordinance, “as an additional safety precaution, to further protect current and future property owners and residents.” CONCERNS VOICED

Keith and Fowler are concerned. Once they were informed of the contamination at Whirlpool’s neighborhood meeting in January, they began researching the chemical on the Internet.

“I’m afraid to live here anymore,” Fowler said after reading about trichloroethylene and its effects.

Keith took her concerns to Erin Brockovich, the Southern California environmental activist who has helped uncover groundwater contamination by Pacific Gas and Electric in the 1990s, according to Brockovich’s website.

In that case, it was determined that residents of a small town were being poisoned by the utility, which led to a $333 million court judgment against the company. Brockovich now champions residents in groundwater-contamination cases across the country. Her story was made into a movie in 2000.

Keith’s complaints were referred to Brockovich’s environmental investigations arm, Integrated Resource Management Inc., which has handled cases for her for the past 18 years, said company managing director Robert Bowcock.

Bowcock said Integrated Resource Management has decided to look into the Whirlpool contamination case, one of 50 contamination cases that the Claremont, Calif., company is working on for Brockovich around the country.

In a Feb. 22 e-mail in response to questions from the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Bowcock criticized Whirlpool for polluting the ground under the neighborhood’s homes and risking the health of the residents.

He wrote that he hopes the community will “take them to task for the property damage, trespass and nuisance they have caused.”

He said he plans to be in the Fort Smith area in late March or April, when he will investigate and meet with neighborhood residents to discuss the issue and let them decide what to do next.

“They may know or not know whether they are harming us, but they put us at risk,” Keith said of Whirlpool.

She said she doesn’t know whether the trichloroethylene contamination has caused health problems in the neighborhood. She said she is disabled, suffering from fibromyalgia and depression. She also has chronic headaches and sinus problems.

“At 47, I shouldn’t have these problems,” she said.

Fowler said if she or her family come down with some ailment, she’s apt to blame Whirlpool.

“I would feel they were at fault because maybe it could have been prevented,” she said.

She said four dogs belonging to her and her husband have died suddenly and for no obvious reason over the years since they moved to the property 21 years ago, causing her to wonder.

‘VAPOR INTRUSION’

Larry Siegel, executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight in Mountain View, Calif., said he has dealt with trichloroethylene groundwater contamination for years in the Silicon Valley area of California.

The center promotes public awareness of environmental cleanup activities at federal facilities and private Superfund sites, according to its website.

He said depending on the dosage, trichloroethylene can cause cancer, and kidney, liver and neurological problems.

Short-term exposure can be dangerous for pregnant women because it can cause cardiac birth defects in unborn babies, he said.

He said “vapor intrusion” of the chemical also could be a problem. Buildings over shallow groundwater, like in Fort Smith, draw vapors upward like air filling a vacuum. If a plume is within 100 feet of a home, he said, there’s a good chance vapors are getting into those homes.

“If there are plumes beneath homes, then I would be very concerned,” Siegel said.

Siegel said he has an EPA grant to provide technical assistance on vapor intrusion.

In the 2009 paper “A Stakeholder’s Guide to Vapor Intrusion,” Siegel wrote that toxic vapors can migrate from subsurface soil or groundwater into homes, schools or other overlying buildings.

When Keith contacted Brockovich and was referred to Integrated Resource Management, she said, she forwarded the company the file of information she amassed on the contamination. That file landed on the desk of company environmental investigator Oliver Phelps.

Phelps said he has reviewed the file and thinks that because of the density of the soil, it is unlikely that the trichloroethylene in the contaminated ground would rise to the surface and that vapor intrusion probably would not be a problem.

He also pointed out, though, that soil density is not a valid reason for Whirlpool to discontinue remedial efforts. Changes could occur that could move the chemical to the surface, he said.

He noted that he has researched data on contaminated sites all over the country and has never encountered a case where dense soil kept contaminated groundwater from surfacing.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 03/03/2013

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