Suspected contamination source: Industrial processes of General Cable Corp. and American Premier Underwriters at the former Warren Wire plant, now owned by Mack Molding (Damon, 2016).
Both of the suspected sources of contamination were associated with the Warren Wire factory on Route 346, after Warren Wire’s Teflon-coating operation was sold to General Cable in the mid-1960s.Warren Wire operated at the Route 346 factory from the late 1940s through the mid-1960s, when the company was sold to General Cable Corp. The business there focused on coating fabrics with Teflon, which was dried in a high-temperature process.
Owners of the Warren Wire business also created ChemFab Corp. in Bennington in 1968, which produced similar Teflon-coated fabrics at two locations in that town. The state identified those ChemFab factories as the source of PFOA contamination, which, through stack emissions, was spread over a large part of Bennington.
American Premier Underwriters assumed environmental liability for the Warren Wire site when it was purchased by the current owner, Mack Molding. APU hired Unicorn Management Consultants to coordinate the company’s response to the Ponwal contamination.
Additional Resources
- Vermont PFOA Contamination Response
- Health Department Updates Health Advisory for PFAS, State Expands Testing Plan to include 10 Schools in Pilot Project
Media Coverage:
- Pownal municipal water contaminated with PFOA
- More PFOA Found In Pownal
- Vermont will test Pownal wells for PFOA contamination
- PFOA Contamination In Pownal Could Drain Vermont’s Cleanup Funds
- State investigates another PFOA site in Ponwal
Full citations are available on the second page of the full contamination site tracker. We ask for your additions, changes, questions and comments be sent to pfasproject@gmail.com.