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New Site In Farmington Declared Eligible For Superfund Cleanup

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New Hampshire has a new Superfund site in the town of Farmington. The 123-acre parcel once hosted Davidson Rubber Company, a plant that manufactured car parts like dashboards, trim pieces and bumpers. It’s taken seven years to get a contaminated former industrial site included into the federal clean-up program.

“Part of that process, from what I understand was molding of parts and there were solvents and other types of chemicals that were used as part of that process,” says town Administrator Keith Trefethen. Many of those chemicals were dumped on site, and when Davidson Rubber went bankrupt not enough money was left over for a cleanup. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2005, and in 2006 the state took the first state toward Superfund status. 

“I do not believe we have contaminations to wells even though we have concerns with some of the neighbors,” says Trefethen.

Studies have found pollutants in the groundwater, but there aren’t many residences near the plume of contamination. Extraction wells and a treatment plant have been in operation since 1995 attempting to clean the contaminated ground water, but have so far been ineffective. The EPA says a comprehensive study of the site is needed to determine if private wells are at risk of contamination.

There are 20 other Superfund sites around the state.

Sam Evans-Brown has been working for New Hampshire Public Radio since 2010, when he began as a freelancer. He shifted gears in 2016 and began producing Outside/In, a podcast and radio show about “the natural world and how we use it.” His work has won him several awards, including two regional Edward R. Murrow awards, one national Murrow, and the Overseas Press Club of America's award for best environmental reporting in any medium. He studied Politics and Spanish at Bates College, and before reporting was variously employed as a Spanish teacher, farmer, bicycle mechanic, ski coach, research assistant, a wilderness trip leader and a technical supporter.
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