A groundwater cleanup pilot study determined Amphenol Corp.’s contamination cleanup efforts in Franklin are working, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday afternoon.
Amphenol in January completed a sewer line and soil cleanup in the neighborhood south of the company’s former facility at 980 Hurricane Road in Franklin.
The project was part of a larger cleanup required by the EPA to address historic contamination originating at the former facility. Before 1983, solvents were released to a floor drain at the facility, which spread through some of the sanitary sewer line in the adjacent neighborhood.
Between October 2019 and April, Amphenol treated contaminated groundwater to neutralize two volatile organic compounds, PCE and TCE, found in the groundwater on and near the Amphenol site, and the EPA tested those efforts, according to an EPA news release.
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Results showed the treatment reduced PCE and TCE levels in the groundwater, and will be considered as a full-scale potential cleanup option for all areas with contaminated groundwater, according to the news release.
The treatment was tested at two locations. One test location was near a groundwater monitoring well on Hamilton Avenue, where concentrations of TCE decreased within a month and were no longer detected. Concentrations of PCE were already under detection limits when the test started, the news release said.
The second test location was a trench along North Forsythe Avenue, where the sewer line was replaced and contaminated soil had been removed. When the sewer trench was open, Amphenol treated the soil and groundwater to see if they could create a contaminant barrier when groundwater moves through the soil, according to the news release.
Concentrations of PCE and TCE in groundwater decreased around the former trench, but it was not clear whether it was the sewer line replacement or treatment that worked. The area will be studied further to understand the effects of the treatment, the EPA said.
Amphenol committed to paying to replace the city sewer segment, upgrade a treatment system and continue paying for testing and treatment of homes that are in the path of the contamination. The company agreed to pay for crews to dig up a city street and remove contaminated soil and replace a sewer line that carried toxins from its plant on Hamilton Avenue into a nearby neighborhood, according to newspaper archives.
Contaminants that were thought to have been contained at the site since the 1990s had actually escaped the property and traveled along the sewer under Forsythe Street, as far south as Ross Court, archives said.
The issue was discovered after a concerned group of parents dubbed If It Was Your Child raised concerns about certain locations that could be contaminated across the city. The Amphenol site and others have been monitored by the EPA or the Indiana Department of Environmental Management for decades, but Franklin Mayor Steve Barnett had asked for proof that the ongoing cleanup and monitoring was working properly.
