Boys & Girls Club officials ‘closely monitor’ Whirlpool pollution movement

Jerry Glidewell has been concerned for more than six months about the small amounts of cancer-causing TCE pollution from Whirlpool’s Fort Smith plant found under the Evans Boys & Girls Club property, but said so far he is “comfortable” that the pollution is not a threat to the hundreds of children, parents and club employees who use the facility.

Glidewell, executive director of the Fort Smith Boys & Girls Club, said other groups, including high school baseball and softball teams, also use the facility, which is one of four club locations in the city.

When the existence of trichloroethylene (TCE) became more broadly known, Whirlpool officials said a groundwater well ban in the vicinity was all that was necessary to deal with the issue. However, more was learned about the pollution plume and the size of contamination has grown and moved in and around the area near Whirlpool’s closed manufacturing plant in south Fort Smith. Whirlpool closed its Fort Smith refrigerator manufacturing plant in June 2012.

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality issued on Dec. 19, 2014, 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.

Glidewell said he and the club’s Board first learned of the potential for pollution near and underneath the Evans site in July. He said Jeff Noel, Whirlpool’s vice president of communications and public affairs, and Mike Ellis, an engineer with Environ, met with the Club Board in August. Environ is the environmental engineering firm hired by Whirlpool to monitor the pollution.

“They’ve been pretty good about communicating the situation out there,” Glidewell said of Noel and Ellis. “But our top question was, and really is, ‘Is it 100% safe out there?’”

Glidewell said he and the Board were not 100% sure what to think about the pollution issue until the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality said it was safe. The Dec. 19 report from ADEQ noted that 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.”

“I feel comfortable with that,” Glidewell said of the ADEQ’s initial determination that the trace amounts of TCE are not a direct threat. “I can see where Whirlpool and their hired consultant would say one thing, but I I do feel comfortable with the fact that the ADEQ has said that (no direct threat).”

Glidewell added that he and the Board “do like the fact that they (ADEQ) are making them (Whirlpool) clean it up back to the way it should be.”

Although they are comfortable with the information supplied by ADEQ, Glidewell said he is aware knowledge about the pollution may change.

“We are concerned about the (pollution) spread in the future and we will closely monitor that and keep getting the reports,” Glidewell said.

Having the pollution come in contact with the club property changed Glidewell’s perspective on the broader problem of Whirlpool pollution in the area.

“You know, we just have this small amount (of TCE) around our place. It really makes me empathize with the residents out there who have their homes in the plume that have really been impacted,” Glidewell said.