FORT SMITH -- A Whirlpool official said Tuesday even though it has sold its closed manufacturing plant, the company will remain responsible for cleaning up the hazardous chemical under the property and the adjoining neighborhood.
"There is nothing in the sales agreement with Phoenix [Investors] that they take on responsibility for environmental issues," Whirlpool Vice President Jeff Noel told city directors Tuesday. "All that continues to be with Whirlpool."
Whirlpool sold 95 acres and its 1.5 million-square-foot plant to Phoenix Investors of Wisconsin in February. Noel said Phoenix plans to announce next week on how it plans to renovate the property.
If Phoenix wants to make any modifications to the plant, such as floor modifications, the foundation, utility work or anything that would have an impact on the ground, Noel said, Whirlpool must develop a work plan to investigate the modifications' effects on disturbing the contaminated ground, manage the waste generated by the changes and deal with any potential impacts to the building, human health or the environment.
In 2014, Ohio-based Spartan Logistics bought the company's 680,000-square-foot warehouse on the 152-acre Whirlpool site in south Fort Smith.
Noel and Mike Ellis from Whirlpool's environmental consultant Ramboll Environ U.S. Corp. reported to city directors on the progress in 2016 of the effort to neutralize trichloroethylene that leaked for years from its manufacturing operation, seeped into the groundwater and migrated from the plant property to under dozens of homes in the neighborhood just north of the Whirlpool property.
In the past three years, Ramboll Environ has pumped thousands of gallons of chemicals into the dense, clay soil on the Whirlpool property and on the edge of the residential neighborhood to neutralize the trichloroethylene.
Ellis said Tuesday continued monitoring from dozens of wells show the concentration of the chemical was subsiding. A chart showed the level dropped by 98 percent in the area where the chemical migrated off the company's property into the neighborhood through a narrow area officials call the neck.
The neck, on the edge of the neighborhood, is where workers concentrated treatment of the neighborhood's trichloroethylene plume by pumping chemicals -- carbon, iron, nutrients and vitamins -- to destabilize and break down the trichloroethylene and feed existing microbes to further break down the chemical, Ellis said.
Elsewhere under the neighborhood farther away from the treatment area, he said, the concentration of the chemical has dropped by 85 percent.
A different chemical compound, sodium sulfate, was pumped into the ground on the company property to oxidize the large trichloroethylene concentration under and near the northwest corner of the plant where the leaking occurred.
The concentration of trichloroethylene under the plant property has decreased by 80 percent, Ellis said.
He said Ramboll officials were considering whether to inject more neutralizing chemicals into the ground.
"We're drilling out there today," he said.
Whirlpool has been working with the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality on a plan to treat the trichloroethylene and monitor progress. The company is monitoring dozens of wells on the Whirlpool property and neighborhood to the north, submitting reports to the state throughout the year and posting them on a website.
All the residents of the neighborhood and properties on the fringes have signed federal court settlement agreements with Whirlpool. As part of the agreement, residents receive a payment, sign deed restrictions against digging to the contaminated groundwater and allow technicians onto their property to check monitoring wells.
The restriction barring digging ensures a pathway isn't created that could expose people to the trichloroethylene under the ground. Trichloroethylene is harmful only if ingested, Whirlpool officials have said.
Officials also continue to test for indoor and sub-slab vapor exposure, Whirlpool's annual report to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality said.
NW News on 04/12/2017