Chemical X (alias) is a 23 acre industrial facility that has recently found itself abandoned by all but the thousands of birds that remain to call this massive web of steel and piping home. When it was operational, it's propose was the manufacturing of a variety of organic chemical compounds, most notably Pyridine and B3.The large amount of by-product from this work had to go somewhere though, and in 1953 the state issued a "permit to discharge sewage or wastes into the waters of the State".
In the 1950's Chemical X was dumping 50,000 gallons of waste a week into six lagoons,each one measuring
about 160 feet long by 70 feet wide. By 1967 the facility had cut dumping back to around 7,000 gallons a week, this was mostly due to an EPA inspection of the lagoons in 1958 and 1960. Test results from the samples taken found traces of Arsenic, Copper, Zinc, Dichloromethane, and Di-n-Butyl Phthalate.
Due to the state's growing concerns with how to contain the contaminants from reaching a public well field, which rested 800 feet from the lagoons, and served over 2,500 residents, the state cut the use of the lagoons in 1968. The last of the lagoons were filled in the 1970's.
In the later 1970's, to keep the public safe from these contaminated lands, a fence was constructed around it's perimeter. The 5 acres of land that were once the dumping lagoons have come to be a rolling grass-covered field. Approximately 6,500 people live within a 3-mile radius of this site, the three closest residents living within 500 feet. Many of these people, including the three closest, rely upon private wells for their water...
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