FORT SMITH -Whirlpool Corp. will monitor the decomposition of the hazardous chemical that leaked from its plant rather than try to remove it from the groundwater beneath the next-door neighborhood in a plan designed by consultants that Whirlpool hired to study the contamination.
Instead of cleaning up the chemical, the Revised Risk Management Plan submitted Monday to the Arkansas Department of Enviromental Quality recommended that Whirlpool track the natural decomposition of the plume of trichloroethylene in the groundwater under the 35-house neighborhood next to its shuttered plant and establish institutional controls such as deed restrictions, covenants and ordinances to restrict access to the contaminated groundwater.
“Institutional controls will not directly remediate the site (reduce concentrations and/or limit migration). However, by preventing exposure (ingestion, direct contact, etc.), institutional controls are proven to effectively protect human health on a short- and longterm basis,” according to the plan submitted by Environ International, which Whirlpool hired to study the contamination.
Jeff Noel, Whirlpool Corp. vice president for communications and public affairs, did not respond to a request forcomment on the plan Tuesday.
City Director Keith Lau said Tuesday he thought anything short of remediating the contaminated groundwater is unacceptable. Damage to residents’ property values as well as the risk to their health also should be addressed in the plan, he said.
City Director Pam Weber said she worries that Whirlpool will be allowed to do the minimum to mitigate the contamination. Steps should be taken to ensure that the residents’ properties are not devalued and the Whirlpool property is cleaned up for potential buyers, she said. Whirlpool closed the plant in June and put it up for sale.
Whirlpool used trichloroethylene as a degreaser from 1967 to 1981. The chemical was found under the ground on company property in 1989. Tests from monitoring wells in 2001 revealed the chemical had migrated into the neighborhood, generally along Jacobs and Brazil avenues, north of the plant.
Bob Bowcock , founder of California-based Integrated Resource Management Inc., said Tuesday that the natural decomposition of trichloroethylene can take 300 years. Exposure to the chemical has neurological and carcinogenic effects and can cause birthdefects, he said.
Bowcock works with activist Erin Brockovich on environmental investigations. Bowcock and Brockovich were in Fort Smith last month to begin an investigation of the Whirlpool contamination and to meet with residents of the neighborhood.
“The company needs to step up and do the right thing,” Bowcock said.
Ethel Fowler of 1504 Jacobs Ave., one of the residents of the neighborhood, said Tuesday that she was upset when she heard the company’s plan proposed doing nothing to remove the chemical from under her home.
“They’re going to get by with the crap, and that aggravates me to no end,” she said.
Another neighborhood resident, Debbie Keith of 1804 Jacobs Ave., said responders to her website said they were not surprised Whirlpool planned to do so little for the neighborhood.
“I don’t see where Whirlpool is going to do anything different,” Keith said. She, along with city officials, has been critical of Whirlpool’s lack of notification about the decades-old contamination and its lack of action to resolve it.
Fowler and Keith said they first learned of the contamination in a meeting Whirlpool representatives held with residents in January. Noel said the company notified the residents and city officialsof the contamination in 2001, 2003 and 2010.
The department will review Whirlpool’s Revised Risk Management Plan and will decide in about a week on which alternative is the most effective for the site, said Katherine Benenati, spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality. The agency will draw up a remedial action decision document, which will set out a schedule of actions for Whirlpool to take.
Completion of the document could take the remainder of the year, she said. After the action document is completed, there will be a 30 day comment period, during which a public hearing will be scheduled if requested.
After the agency gives its final approval to the plan, she said, Whirlpool would be required to notify neighborhood residents of the contamination.
The plan submitted to the Environmental Quality Department proposes to use a chemical to neutralize the tricholorethylene in the soil under Whirlpool’s property.
“This on-site reduction of concentration of contaminants would then further protect offsite residents,” the plan states.
Barriers on the surface of Whirlpool’s property, such as concrete or asphalt slabs, would cap areas of the contaminated ground and eliminate access to the contaminated ground underneath, theplan stated.
The chemical neutralizer would be effective in the gravelly soil under the degreasing building at the north end of the Whirlpool plant where the chemical was used. But the neutralizing agent can’t penetrate the contamination in the soil under the neighborhood because it has too much clay, according to the plan.
Whirlpool representatives asked city directors to pass an ordinance that would ban the drilling of water wells in the neighborhood to eliminate access to the chemical. Whirlpool and the Environmental Quality Department stated the trichloroethylene is harmful only if the contaminated groundwater is ingested.
The city supplies water to the neighborhood, and there are no water wells other than the Whirlpool monitoring wells.
The directors rejected the proposed ordinance at their March 27 meeting but passed a resolution at their April 5 meeting calling the contamination an emergency and urging Whirlpool and the department to move quickly to resolve the contamination.
Copies of the resolution were sent to the chairman of Whirlpool, Gov. Mike Beebe, the Environmental Quality Department director and the Pollution Control and Ecology Commission chairman. Copies also were being prepared Tuesday to be sent to federal and state lawmakers.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/10/2013