Doubt raised over progress of soil cleanup

City directors worry work at Whirlpool site too slow

FORT SMITH — Fort Smith city directors Tuesday questioned the progress Whirlpool Corp. officials and representatives say they have made over the past year in eliminating a hazardous chemical tainting the ground under the company’s closed plant and an adjoining neighborhood.

City Director Keith Lau told Whirlpool Vice President Jeff Noel and Environ International Corp.’s Mike Ellis he was concerned work may not be proceeding fast enough to treat the trichloroethylene under the shuttered plant in south Fort Smith.

Noel and Ellis attended the city’s study session Tuesday to give a progress report on steps that Whirlpool and its consultant Environ have taken in the past year to neutralize the chemical in the soil and groundwater on Whirlpool property and to monitor the chemical under the neighborhood into which it has migrated over 25 years.

Lau pointed to a letter dated Friday from engineer Mostafa Mehran, of the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s Hazardous Waste Division, saying the company removed only 1 percent of the contaminated soil in the area that testing showed has the highest level of contamination.

“I’m concerned because [the department] is concerned that we’re not moving fast enough,” Lau said.

Noel said he interpreted Mehran’s letter as a request to explain why more soil shouldn’t be removed. He said Whirlpool and the Environmental Quality Department will discuss in a forthcoming meeting whether the soil that has been removed is sufficient, given the decrease in the amount of trichloroethylene in the soil in the area.

Environ workers re - moved 210 cubic yards of highly contaminated soil earlier this year to reduce the amount of trichloroethylene seeping north off the property into the neighborhood and south, deeper onto Whirlpool property. Mehran’s letter said the amount of soil removed was less than 1 percent of the 28,900 cubic yards that Environ estimated is present in the highly contaminated section.

Whirlpool said the decrease in the trichloroethylene level in the highly contaminated area has cut off what is considered the source of the plume from seeping into the neighborhood. Mehran acknowledged the separation in his letter.

The letter also says the highly contaminated area in the northwest section of the plant property continues to fuel movement of the plume south on company property.

“Reduction or elimination of this contamination source is essential to the remediation of the southern groundwater plume as it continues to move to the south,” Mehran said in the letter.

Whirlpool has argued removing more soil could destabilize the plant’s foundation and soil around a nearby electric substation.

Also Tuesday, Director Kevin Settle questioned whether children, including himself, may have been exposed to trichloroethylene in the 1980s and 1990s when swimming in a pool at the Fort Smith Boys & Girls Club just northeast of the plant.

Voluntary testing last summer of the area off the company’s northeast corner showed traces of trichloroethylene on the southern corner of the Boys & Girls Club property. None was detected near the club’s building or ball fields.

“I can’t guarantee nothing was there, but I can tell you what the current status [is] and what we monitor today,” Ellis said. “That’s the extent of the TCE [trichloroethylene].”

Noel also told city directors some residents in the neighborhood with the contaminated groundwater have agreed to settle with the company over issues in two lawsuits in federal court.

The suits claim trespass, nuisance, violation of the Arkansas Deceptive Trade Practices Act and fraudulent concealment. One suit represents about 20 property owners; the other has two plaintiffs and is seeking class-action status.

Settlement negotiations continue, he said.

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