Whirlpool: 49 residents taking deal

Fort Smith gets taint-area report

FORT SMITH — A Whirlpool Corp. official told Fort Smith city directors Tuesday that 49 residents in a neighborhood contaminated with a hazardous chemical from past plant operations by the company have reached a settlement agreement with it.

Jeff Noel, Whirlpool corporate vice president for communications and public affairs, told the directors that the 49 residents have or will be paid the amount by which the Sebastian County assessor reduced their property values because of the trichloroethylene that has seeped into the groundwater under their homes for decades.

The company is paying an additional 33 percent of that reduced value to the property owners to pay their legal expenses in a federal lawsuit they filed against Whirlpool last year, he said.

Of those 49 property owners, 23 were parties against Whirlpool in the lawsuit blaming the company for the contamination that prompted Sebastian County Assessor Becky Yandell to reduce their property values, for some by as much as 75 percent, in May 2013.

“So, if they were represented by counsel, that would help them pay expenses,” Noel said. “If they were not represented by counsel, they got to keep that additional 33 percent.”

Federal court records show those 23 residents were included in a May 5 dismissal order. That leaves three property owners in the lawsuit that started with 26 parties, which is set for trial in December.

Noel gave directors some examples of the effects of the settlement. One of the properties that had been valued at about $90,000, he said, was reduced by Yandell to about $43,000. That owner received a check for about $64,000: $47,000 for the amount the property value was reduced, plus $17,000 as the additional 33 percent intended for legal costs.

Another owner whose property value was reduced from $57,000 to $32,000 received a check for $42,000, he said.

In return, he said, the property owners agree to drop all claims against Whirlpool on the issue of property values but retained the right to bring legal action against the company in the future for health concerns.

He reiterated Tuesday that there were no pathways to exposure to the contaminated groundwater.

Whirlpool’s plan for dealing with the contamination under the neighborhood, which was approved by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality, is to restrict human exposure to the chemical and allow it to decompose naturally.

To that end, the property owners agreed to allow Whirlpool to place deed restrictions against drilling water wells on their property. The company also would have access to the property where testing wells are needed.

In Whirlpool’s report to the city directors Tuesday, Mike Ellis, principal in Environ International Corp., said chemical oxidation treatment of the trichloroethylene was performed last year on Whirlpool property where the chemical concentration is highest.

The groundwater was also treated under a small portion of land at the edge of the neighborhood where the plume of chemical narrows into an area that Ellis called the “neck.”

“We’ve seen dramatic decreases in the concentrations, nearly 70 percent in all the areas where we performed remediation,” Ellis said.

Environ is a Little Rock consultant conducting the trichloroethylene testing and treatment for Whirlpool.

Ellis said the chemical oxidation agent is pumped into wells at various locations. It breaks down the trichloroethylene into a gas, and it disperses.

Ellis said the work on the contaminated groundwater has separated the main plume on company property from the plume under the neighborhood.

“So we have no more contamination going to the north” into the neighborhood, he said.

Trichloroethylene, which can cause cancer, was used by Whirlpool from 1967 to 1981 to clean metal refrigerator parts before assembly. Workers discovered trichloroethylene in the ground under the plant property in 1989. The company discovered in 2001 that the chemical had migrated in the groundwater into the neighborhood to the north of the plant.

Residents of the neighborhood learned of the contamination in January 2013, when a company representative held a neighborhood meeting to notify residents of intentions to seek an ordinance from the city directors for a ban against drilling water wells in the neighborhood.

The directors rejected the ordinance, instead calling on Whirlpool and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality to work as quickly as possible to clean up the contamination under the neighborhood.

Noel also reported Tuesday on efforts to redevelop the 152-acre property since the plant closed in June 2012. He proposed Tuesday that it could be redeveloped into an industrial and commercial park.

Ohio-based Spartan Logistics bought a 620,000-squarefoot building on nearly 60 acres of the site a year ago.

Noel said there were two interested parties looking at the remaining acreage and that Whirlpool was looking at the possibility of breaking up the large expanse of land into smaller lots that could fit the needs of those interested parties or others.

He said the existing large main plant building could be reduced in size for warehousing or manufacturing.

Developers could clear the rest of the land, build access roads and configure 10 to 12 parcels on which companies could come in and build to fit their space needs, he said.

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