The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality issued on Dec. 19 a revised plan for addressing pollution in and around Whirlpool’s Fort Smith plant that says pollution has reached the Fort Smith Boys and Girls Club facility but does not necessarily present a direct health hazard.
The revised Remedial Action Decision Document (RADD) is another step in the process in which officials at ADEQ and Benton Harbor, Mich.-based based Whirlpool Corp. disagree about the extent and danger of pollution.
Whirlpool closed its Fort Smith refrigerator manufacturing plant in June 2012, resulting in the loss of about 1,000 jobs. The company had employed as many as 4,600 at the plant in the mid-2000s.
POLLUTION PLAN HISTORY
ADEQ issued its first RADD in December 2013. Whirlpool said in May that contamination in some areas is worse than originally thought and would require soil removal. The ADEQ said Whirlpool and its consultants knew about the contamination at Whirlpool’s former Fort Smith manufacturing operation even as it was presenting a remediation plan to the agency late last year and early this year.
In July, Jeff Noel, Whirlpool's corporate vice president of communications and public affairs, told the Fort Smith Board of Directors that the company had made meaningful progress on remediation during the last six months.
"You'll see that we have, I think, advanced the ball very nicely in terms of the remediation," he said.
Just a few weeks later it was learned that more testing would be needed to see if TCE and/or other chemicals from the Whirlpool plant were underneath or near the Boys and Girls Club property. Whirlpool said the pollution near the club posed no risk.
In September, ADEQ Engineer Mostafa Mehran said the Whirlpool pollution plume is growing and it could not be certain that no health risk existed with pollution near the Boys and Girls Club site or in other areas of the plume.
"Given the apparent shape of the plume, ADEQ requires an additional monitoring well in the northwest corner of City of Fort Smith property (three properties)," Mehran wrote.
Whirlpool said in October that the plume is decreasing rather than growing. ADEQ documents released in early November again expressed disagreement about the status of the pollution plume and asked Whirlpool for more data to support the claim that the plume was shrinking.
THE REVISED PLAN
The revised ADEQ plan suggests the Boys and Girls Club is not clear of the pollution plume.
“Additionally, groundwater with TCE concentrations slightly above the MCL (maximum contaminant levels) has been detected on Boys and Girls Club property, immediately northeast of the Whirlpool site,” noted the ADEQ report.
Although TCE is the chemical of concern (COC), the ADEQ report said “several other volatile organic compounds” were found in the site have been “retained for evaluation.”
However, none of the chemicals in the analysis “exceed USEPA (Environmental Protection Agency) acceptable cancer risk range of 1E-06 to 1E-04.” The report said “on-site routine workers” and construction workers could be exposed to the chemicals via “vapor intrusion” and “on-site groundwater.”
The revised RADD outlines a detailed plan to deal with surface, subsurface and other areas of pollution. The plan also includes “institutional controls” to “further protect human health and prevent groundwater use from the aquifer,” with such controls including information in the land records and other deed protocols and land-use restrictions.
“The elected alternative(s) should assure protection of human health and the environment and should eliminate the exposure pathway to the COCs (chemicals of concern),” according to the revised ADEQ plan. (Link here for a PDF copy of the report.)
FORT SMITH BOARD NOTE
On Friday (Dec. 26), Fort Smith City Administrator Ray Gosack sent a note to the Fort Smith Board and the media about the revised ADEQ plan the city received on Dec. 19.
“The revised draft RADD appears to focus on changes since the original RADD was approved. Specifically, it includes provisions for the removal of soils in the most heavily contaminated area near the plant; and recognizes the presence of TCE underneath a portion of the Boys and Girls Club property to the northeast,” Gosack noted in the e-mail.
Gosack’s note said the remediation actions now include:
Radiation and thermal conduction of the contaminated soils to increase the soil temperature, thereby resulting in the removal of contaminants through vaporization. The vapors will be collected into a vapor treatment device;
Removal of contaminated soils in areas near the plant building; and
The previously approved chemical oxidations of the contaminated groundwater are still part of the plan.
Gosack said Whirlpool’s Noel is scheduled to be at the Board’s Jan. 27 meeting to present an annual report on the TCE clean-up effort. Gosack said he is not sure if the public will have a chance to comment on a revised plan.
“I’ve asked the ADEQ staff if public comments are being received on the draft revised plan, and if they plan to conduct any public meetings. I’ll let you know what I hear from ADEQ,” Gosack said.