As early as May 2020, a food manufacturer was considering investing $100 million in Henderson City for an industrial park owned by a city near the Ohio River.
For a city in a rural area in western Kentucky, this business is an opportunity to generate taxes and an estimated 90 full-time jobs for the community. The company emphasizes the importance of one thing: clean groundwater.
But at the end of last year, the company quietly left after learning about some things that officials did not want to share with residents.
High concentrations of permanent chemicals have infiltrated the shallow aquifer beneath the city and are spreading towards the Ohio River.
A WFPL news investigation found that three decades-old Shamrock Technologies facilities contaminated Henderson with PFAS chemicals, affecting thousands of people working, studying and living in the area. These facilities are close to communities, churches, schools, healthcare centers, grocery stores, and wetlands where endangered species habitats. City and state officials have yet to disclose the pollution level to residents.
After WFPL looked at thousands of pages of city and state records related to pollution, it learned about food producers, which city officials only referred to as "project size." Records show that the extent of pollution is more widespread than suggested by city and state leaders.
PFAS chemicals are associated with increased cancer risk, liver and kidney damage, low birth weight and reduced vaccine response, and other health effects.
When the WFPL confronted city officials for the first time in August, they played down the level of pollution, pretended to be ignorant, and lied openly about their economic losses.
Residents said that the government did not tell them about the pollution.
"It's like not telling people that a tornado is coming. I mean, you can't do anything about it, but you must at least know that this is a possibility so you can act accordingly," said Velvet Dowdy, a local high school chemistry teacher .
After the WFPL started asking about their knowledge of pollution levels, city officials made a big change in mid-October. They hired a public relations firm to provide crisis communication support at a price of $175 per hour and issued a press release on the formation of a city-led PFAS working group.
After several attempts to talk to the mayor and city manager, city spokesperson Donna Steinnet canceled the interview for this story.
"Our community leaders take our commitment to protecting the health and safety of all citizens of Henderson seriously, and we have a lot of questions about PFAS and its impact [sic]," Stinnett said in an email.
City officials said that forever chemicals have a low level of impact on Henderson’s drinking water, and the city has taken active steps to reduce them.
But these chemicals are not limited to drinking water. They exist in soils, waterways, and aquifers underground in cities. Health experts say that if they are not removed, they will pose a risk to future generations, if not in Henderson, then elsewhere downstream.
"If I lived in that area, yes, I would be worried," said Jamie DeWitt, a toxicologist who runs a research laboratory at East Carolina University to investigate the health effects of PFAS.
PFAS is a family composed of thousands of compounds. They have the strongest bond in organic chemistry and are highly regarded for their heat resistance, oil resistance, grease resistance and water resistance. This is why they got the nickname "Eternal Chemicals"-they need a very, very long time to decompose in nature and the human body.
From non-stick pans to fire-fighting foam and fast food wrappers, they have it all.
According to an air permit issued in 2018, Shamrock Technologies recycled PTFE (better known as DuPont's brand name Teflon) to make micronized powders and inks. Company records show that PFAS chemicals are by-products.
The company recycles waste and substandard PTFE products, grinds them, irradiates them, and bake them at high temperatures to remove residual chemicals. Records show that the waste gas produced during this process is discharged through the factory chimney, drifted in the wind, and landed in nearby communities. PFAS particles will eventually enter rainwater and wastewater, and then enter the streams and shallow aquifers below the city.
PTFE material at Shamrock Technologies Community Drive plant in June 2020.
Shamrock has been operating in Kentucky since the 1990s. It now has three facilities in Henderson. Two of them process PTFE; third, the materials are classified, classified and cut according to company documents.
Shamrock first discovered pollution in 2018. Afterwards, Shamrock’s consultants tested soil and water in a grid of 10 football fields around its three facilities. According to a draft report of the company in 2020, the company found permanent chemicals in almost every sample they tested.
According to the EPA demographic database, approximately 10,000 people live within one mile of the clover facility. Approximately 60% of residents are low-income earners, and they are two to three times more likely to be people of color than in neighboring counties.
According to the company's report, Shamrock's consultants found PFAS chemicals in communities, farmland, near high schools, around women's rehabilitation centers, pizzerias, and hospice centers.
They found pollution near churches, grocery stores, and outside the Christian Life Education Center, where dozens of young children were learning on the way from the clover facility. Shamrock Technology did not respond to an interview request.
“Our goal is to be able to assure the residents around our facilities that our factories are in full compliance with all federal, state, and local laws. These include addressing potential health risks and potential health risks of any operations that may affect the health of the community or our employees in the past or on the site. Environmental impact," said manufacturing director Michael Usila in a statement to WFPL News in August.
Pollution spreads through groundwater and streams to urban wetlands, which are maintained by conservation easements to protect endangered species such as Indiana bats and several freshwater mussels.
Project scale and pollution reduction
Project Scale is the code name for an aquaculture food production company looking for industrial land in Kentucky.
The company plans to bring 90 employees to the area and invest $102 million, but the project requires clean groundwater, according to the overview.
The Kentucky Economic Development Cabinet contacted Henderson about the project in May 2020 and plans to start construction before the end of the year. The company settled at a location near the end of Borax Drive, Ohio River and Canoe Creek. But in December, the plan failed.
"The company issued an FOIA request regarding water quality to the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection," Missy Vanderpool, executive director of Henderson Economic Development, wrote in an email to city managers, mayors and other officials. "The results they got from that request resulted in us being excluded from this project."
WFPL News could not confirm the name of the company involved. The states regularly keep secrets for companies that want to invest in a certain area until they reach an agreement.
A national environmental scientist said that groundwater may be contaminated for generations. The company does not want to be involved.
When WFPL News interviewed William "Buzzy" Newman, the city manager this summer, he denied knowing that the city had lost any business investment opportunities.
"That's not true," he told WFPL News. "We have no real interest in this property. As we know it today, it is a vacant property."
However, the documents obtained by WFPL prove that Newman knew that the food production project had failed due to PFAS contamination. In fact, on the day the city government learned of the loss of business, it was Newman who first proposed that the pollution might come from Clover Technology.
"Due to recent tests conducted in the area, clover may be the culprit," he wrote to the general manager of Henderson Water.
The proposed site of Project Scale, the company plans to invest $102 million in industrial sites owned by the city until 2020 is informed of PFAS pollution in the groundwater in Henderson, Kentucky.
Newman signed an agreement that allowed Clover to test the city's location. He received a limited report from Shamrock officials that the pollution had moved off-site, and talked with state officials about the pollution.
He did not warn residents about pollution, nor did he tell them about economic development projects that failed because of this. But a few weeks after the failed Project Scale deal, Newman did feel obligated to tell Shamrock:
"The city government has a prospect for our industrial park, but at the 11th hour, they withdrew from consideration. Several of us wanted to know the reason, and the National Economic Cabinet responded via a Zoom call. They said, your test As a result, a red flag was raised internally that the possibility of contamination and the food industry are not well integrated," he wrote in an e-mail.
The representative of Shamrock, Eusela, replied: "This is very interesting. Thank you for the background story."
Newman said he has no relationship with Shamrock Technology, but in the fall of 2020, he used his government email address to try to purchase a property he knew was contaminated by Shamrock Technology.
"Mike, a quick personal question. Shamrock owns a building south of the McKinley factory. It seems that it hasn't been used for a while. Is Shamrock interested in only selling the building and not the land behind the factory?" Newman wrote to Eusela of Clover in September 2020.
Jussila stated that Shamrock had inquired about the property many times, but the company was unwilling to sell it before the environmental work was completed.
"Once it's done, he may change his mind," Jussila wrote back explaining the thoughts of the company's president William Neuberg. "If he changes his mind, I will let you know."
Newman replied: "Thanks for sharing. The space I rented has the same type of environmental issues. I had to sign a waiver to acknowledge this. Anyway, if there is one, please let me know. Thank you."
This seems to violate the city’s ethics policy, which stipulates that city managers must not engage in any other business without the approval of the committee.
"Should I do it in my private email? It may be, but other than that, I interact with a lot of people every day," Newman said when asked about the request.
PFAS chemicals in drinking water are the most widely known health risks, including cancer and inflammatory bowel disease. Little is known about the risks of permanent inhalation of chemicals, but experts say they are likely to pose a serious threat to health.
The EPA recommends that for every trillion drinking water particles, the lifetime exposure to PFAS particles should not exceed 70. In the European Union, it is less than one part per trillion, and several states have adopted stricter standards than the EPA's health recommendations.
The EPA's new roadmap outlines plans to explore the full life cycle of PFAS, how they move in the environment, and how people may be exposed in its latest chemical regulation. The agency said it will hold polluters accountable and give priority to disadvantaged communities.
In Parkersburg, West Virginia, Cape Fell, North Carolina, and other communities, high levels of PFAS chemicals in drinking water have caused health problems, fines, lawsuits, and hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements.
According to a 2019 report from the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, PFAS has been detected in half of all public drinking water systems in Kentucky. Most people have PFAS levels below 5 parts per trillion.
Kevin Roberts, Henderson Water’s director of operations, said that in 2019, Henderson Water found approximately 7 parts per trillion of PFAS compounds in its drinking water. He said that Henderson started using activated carbon to help filter out pollutants, and that these chemicals did not continue to cause problems.
EPA's health recommendations do not apply to soil or water in creeks and lakes. But this does not mean that pollution is safe. As long as these chemicals are present in the environment, they pose a risk, and they will be there for a long time.
Take a private well as an example. So far, the state has not detected levels above the EPA recommended limit in six nearby wells, but as long as PFAS chemicals are present in groundwater, they may affect them.
Clover’s consultants discovered PFAS chemicals in farmland, and they may eventually appear in the food people eat. The content of the soil around the three Henderson sites also proves the presence of chemicals in the air that residents breathe.
People are least aware of the health effects of inhaling PFAS. Preliminary studies have shown that these chemicals can damage children’s lung function and may be harmful to your lungs, but experts in the field say that there is not enough research on this topic.
Linda Birnbaum, honorary scientist and former director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said inhalation may be more dangerous than ingestion. She said that PFAS are sticky molecules that bind to proteins, which is why they often appear in the blood.
"If they enter the lungs, they will stick to some of the proteins in the lung fluid, and then they will spread all over the body again instead of being pulled out by the liver or kidneys," Birnbaum said.
The United States has a long history, allowing chemicals to be learned after the fact, which is a very bad idea. The list includes leaded gasoline, asbestos, and ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFC).
DeWitt, a toxicologist at East Carolina University, said that the so-called "precautionary principle" assumes that chemicals are dangerous unless proven otherwise.
"Our approach in the United States is the opposite. We assume that something can be used until we find it to be dangerous, and then we will restrict or ban it," she said.
DeWitt said that if she lived near one of the clover facilities, she would worry about her health. She said that once the pollution in the world disappears, consumers can only do a lot to reduce their exposure. They can keep the house clean, buy water filters, choose the products they buy and vote.
"I would encourage people to write to representatives and senators at the state and federal levels to let them know that they want to see action on PFAS pollution in their communities," DeWitt said.
Residents left in the dark
Dowdy, a local high school chemistry teacher, heard the news of WFPL in the local NPR radio report for the first time.
"I remember when I was driving forward, my concentration was only half focused, and then my ears stood up, and I thought,'Are they talking about Henderson?" Dowdy told the WFPL.
Robert Lachance lives just a few blocks from a clover factory in the east side of Henderson. He passed it on his way to the grocery store. He said that no one had told him about the pollution near him.
"This should be... reporting to the area what it is affecting," Lachance said.
Many people in Henderson are not familiar with these chemicals and their effects. Clayton Horton, Director of Public Health of the Green River District, and others used his words "just a very basic level of knowledge."
Others would rather not discuss this topic at all. Henderson state legislators did not respond to requests for comment. Even The Nature Conservancy rejected the request to review the pollution data and instead sent a statement.
"As for off-site activities or issues that may affect the property, The Nature Conservancy is collecting information, but there is currently no more content to add," part of the statement read.
A map outlining the wetlands along Canoe Creek in Henderson, Kentucky.
Even those who know that Shamrock has tested PFAS chemicals on or near their properties don't want to discuss pollution.
When asked about the level found in his property, a representative of St. Anthony's Hospice declined to comment. School officials at North Middle School did not respond to phone calls or emails.
But when Dowdy heard about the pollution, she started investigating. In her more than 30 years as a chemistry teacher and a double degree in chemistry and biology, she quickly realized the seriousness of the problem.
She said: "If you have only been in contact with contaminated soil or contaminated water a few times, then in this case, you can maximize your lifetime exposure."
Dowdy said that the people at Henderson need to understand what is happening so they can find a solution and figure out what to do next.
City's response to Henderson PFAS pollution
City officials have always stated that they do not know the extent of PFAS pollution. But they realized that the pollution was serious enough to make a company think that the city was unable to carry out major projects.
Although city officials did not make any public statements, behind the scenes, they are communicating about the test and results.
Like the city, Shamrock officials are reluctant to disclose the level of pollution.
Although the company provided preliminary findings to the city that showed off-site pollution around its facilities, the city stated that the company has never shared a complete report. Instead, WFPL News provided it to them.
Wednesday, November 3, 2021, located in the east side of Henderson, Kentucky, just a few blocks from a factory of Clover Technology.
According to a statement from the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet, Shamrock Technologies has taken measures to limit further pollution, including removing leaking underground storage tanks, transferring contaminated sludge off-site, and installing air filters on fans blowing out of the building Device.
After months of downplaying this issue and suggesting that it is not the city’s responsibility to inform the public, the city established a working group to better understand and explain the risks posed by PFAS chemicals. They also hired an environmental consultant to review the pollution level.
According to the agreement with C2 Strategic Communications, the city also plans to spend up to $8,750 a month on a public relations company to handle crisis communications and better communicate with the public.
So far, these chemicals have remained in communities and groundwater.
Later this week, in the second part, WFPL News reported how the state's Department of Environmental Protection failed to inform the public about Henderson’s pollution, even though it privately warned the president of Clover Technology that groundwater resources may be affected. Thousand years of destruction.
Additional reporting by Jasmine Snow of APM Reports, the US public media investigation agency.
This story was produced as part of the APM Reports Public Media Accountability Program, which supports investigation and reporting by local media across the country. The public broadcaster also provided support.