Case Study: Mowbray Engineering Co., Alabama
From GeoClasses
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Mowbray Engineering Co., Alabama
by: Kelsey Beagle
- Mowbray Engineering Company was and example of the dangerous amounts of carelessness that goes into proper waste disposal of a product. Located in Butler county, Alabama is the small town of Greenville, the home of Mowbray Engineering company. Mowbray Engineering company made their money through the repairing and reconditioning of electrical transformers.
- In 1955, the company thought that the best way to dispose of the leftover oil or Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) transformer oil from the reconditioning was to simply dump the waste on the unused ground behind the building. This form of disposal went on from 1955 to 1974 until it was discovered that the Polychlorinated Biphenyl (PCB) was leaking into the drainage system. When they followed the path it was discovered also that the PCB’s were in the swamp across from the plant and was causing large amounts of fish to die.
- When this was discovered the U.S. EPA did an immediate investigation to determine how deep in the soil the Polychlorinated Biphenyl waste had gotten. Because of high-levels of concern and the large amount of work it was going to take to fix this problem the Mowbray Engineering Company was put on the top priority list of 1982. Soon after, the long process of solidification and stabilization of the soil began. The area was not only cleaned but a diversion ditch was built, the swamp was fenced off from the public, and city wells and local storage tanks were closed and removed.
- The remaining soil and groundwater were tested and it was discovered that not their work was not over yet. The levels of contaminations of the ground water were more than triple the maximum-contaminate level of 0.5 ug/l. After taking immediate action to clean all the necessary areas the area is presently safe and under close watch to make sure that this will never happen again.
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