Whirlpool posts 2024 report on Fort Smith pollution monitoring
by Michael Tilley
Talk Business & Politics
July 6, 2025
The 2024 annual report from the engineering firm hired by Whirlpool to monitor cancer-causing pollution at the former Whirlpool site in Fort Smith indicates the presence of harmful chemicals remain, but there is “no unacceptable risk to human health or the environment.”
Benton Harbor, Mich.-based Whirlpool closed its refrigerator manufacturing plant at 6400 Jenny Lind Road in June 2012, moving most production jobs to Mexico. Around 1,000 people worked at the plant when it closed, but plant employment peaked near 4,500. In 2013, and after public pressure, Whirlpool officials admitted to leaking trichloroethylene (TCE), a cancer-causing chemical, into properties around the Fort Smith plant, which sat on 153 acres.
Copenhagen, Denmark-based Ramboll was hired by Whirlpool to monitor the pollution and provide remediation plans and information to the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). The company began remediation in October 2015 with injection wells around what was then the known plumes. Other dangerous chemicals monitored include vinyl chloride and a cDCE, a form of dichloroethene.
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For the entire article, see
https://talkbusiness.net/2025/07/whirlpool-posts-2024-report-on-fort-smith-pollution-monitoring/
—
Lenny Siegel
Executive Director
Center for Public Environmental Oversight
A project of the Pacific Studies Center
LSiegel@cpeo.org
P.O. Box 998, Mountain View, CA 94042
Voice/Fax: 650-961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
Author: DISTURBING THE WAR: The Inside Story of the Movement to Get Stanford University out of Southeast Asia - 1965–1975 (See http://a3mreunion.org)
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