Facing pushback from environmental groups, an air conditioning manufacturing company in Collierville has withdrawn a proposal to pump treated wastewater into the Memphis Sand Aquifer, the source of the area’s drinking water.
While the Carrier Corporation is no longer asking water regulators to grant them an exemption to a county-wide ban on injecting groundwater into the aquifer, the company's statement says the decision is “contingent on our ability to refile and request a waiver at a later date.”
Carrier originally went before the Shelby County Groundwater Control Board in December with a proposal to change the cleanup plan of its Collierville Superfund site—135 acrespolluted with the cancer-causing chemical trichloroethylene (TCE).
Under its current plan, Carrier pumps contaminated groundwater to the surface, treats it for TCE and sends it to a sewage plant for disposal. But the company says this method limits their cleanup efforts because the sewage plant can only take a limited volume of water during weather events like heavy rain.
The ability to return the water treated for TCE into the aquifer would speed up this process and would meet all environmental standards, the company has said.
But environmental groups say this puts the county’s drinking water at risk because other contaminants, namely chromium, would likely be in the water returned to the aquifer.
A plume of underground chromium—also a carcinogen—has intruded the Carrier site, migrating underground from a separate but nearby cleanup operation.
“There were too many unknowns,” says Ward Archer, head of the non-profit Protect Our Aquifer, which lobbied against the proposal. “The whole idea of an injection well there doesn’t pass the common sense test, so fortunately they [Carrier] must feel the same way.”
Representatives from Carrier said at the December board meeting that their intended method of injection would push the plume of chromium away from the site. But opponents said Carrier’s scientific modeling was incomplete and short-sighted.
“Even if there’s a one percent chance that it doesn’t work, you cannot do it,” Archer says. “You cannot take a chance like that.”
Amanda Garcia, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, hopes the public opposition to the proposal will lead Carrier and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop a joint cleanup plan for the entire area. The EPA is in charge of cleaning up the chromium plume.
“Carrier has other options available,” she says. “I’m looking forward to hearing more about what they might propose as an alternative to injecting wastewater in Collierville’s drinking water source.”
Carrier has not announced how the company will proceed moving forward.
“We appreciate the thoughtful feedback we received from the Shelby County agencies and other stakeholders,” the company said in a statement, noting a desire to reduce Carrier's environmental impact. “We have listened to the feedback and are evaluating additional options."
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