Industri-Plex Superfund Site

Overview

The Industri-Plex Superfund site in north Woburn was home to numerous manufacturing facilities from the mid-1800s to 1980. The businesses that were located in this area included leather manufacturers and chemical manufacturers that produced products for the leather industry and produced insecticides and pesticides for agricultural purposes.

Industri-Plex Superfund Site

The Industri-Plex property was been added to the National Priorities List as a Superfund site in 1983. Details regarding the Industri-Plex site can be found at the Industri-Plex Superfund Site: U.S. EPA Info website.

Industri-Plex and the Woburn Toxic Trial

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Merrimack Chemical Company, 1922

One of the expert witnesses for W.R. Grace suggested the Industri-Plex Superfund site was a significant source of contaminants to municipal wells G and H. The level of contamination identified at the site made it arguably a significant potential source for the contamination to the municipal wells. Subsequent to the trial, several and theses and technical articles based on research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been published. These articles document the the levels of arsenic, chromium, and lead in sediments at the Industri-Plex site and within sediments transported downstream from it by the Aberjona River (Reynolds 1993 , Kim 1995 , Brainard 1990 , Zeeb 1996 , Aurilio et al. 1994 , Spliethoff and Hemond 1996 ).

Industri-Plex and a Mock Trial

Students are encouraged to consider the role of pollution of the Aberjona River from the Industri-Plex site and the induced infiltration of polluted river water to municipal wells G and H as part of the overall evaluation of the Woburn water resources.