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.