A Superfund Site for a former dry cleaner near the University of Memphis that is currently being remediated for groundwater contamination that is moving toward our drinking water and the nearby Sheahan Well Field.
At 3715 Southern Avenue, Madison Appliance & Home Laundry was a dry cleaning company that operated from 1945 through the mid 1990s.
They used tetrachloroethene (PCE) as their cleaning solvent. PCE, or “perc”, is a cancer-causing chemical and is linked to neurological, liver and kidney problems. It is also one of the most commonly-used chemicals in dry cleaning, an industry with a long history of environmental pollution. At Madison Appliance, they disposed of the PCE incorrectly, allowing the solvent to spill and infiltrate the soil onsite.
In 1999, Sharri Schmidt, a Memphis entrepreneur and artist, rented the former dry cleaning location to open “Sharri’s Discount Arts.” Sharri sold art supplies and lived on the second floor with her husband and two cats, Kitty Boy and Kitty Girl. In 2013, Sharri got sick and had to close her business to cover her accruing medical bills. After months of testing, doctors found two tumors in her stomach. Meanwhile, both of her cats began suffering health problems and soon after passed away prematurely.
Before she closed the shop, Sharri had been dealing with a leaky roof that her landlord refused to fix. The building also had a chronic foul odor. She filed a complaint with TDEC in June 2013, but her concerns were initially blamed on the roof leak. However, amidst her health battle, Sharri continued to advocate and, in March 2014, TDEC visited the site to collect soil and groundwater samples.
Those samples confirmed that the land was contaminated with PCE, and that vapors had been rising up through the building's concrete slab. Sharri and her family had been breathing in toxic PCE. In 2016, the site was listed on the EPA’s National Priorities List for remediation. Later that year, the building was demolished and 400 dump truck loads of contaminated soil were removed.
At Former Custom Cleaners, now an empty lot next to the McDonalds on Southern Avenue, a toxic plume of PCE in the shallow aquifer is spreading. This means that the groundwater directly above the Memphis Sand Aquifer is contaminated. Since 2017, the EPA has been tracking this plume with a series of monitoring wells, finding PCE concentrations 28 times higher than the federal limit. These monitoring wells were drilled to 150 feet deep – the Memphis Sand Aquifer in this area starts at 175 feet under the protective clay layer.
Scientists have also found a breach in that clay layer just 650 feet east of the site. This exposes our drinking water source to the contamination above. It creates a direct pathway for PCE-contamined groundwater to move down into our Aquifer. About a half mile east down the road, Sheahan Pumping station is the MLGW well field that pumps drinking water for the surrounding area and much of East Memphis. We know that pumping at well fields creates a “drawdown effect,” pulling nearby groundwater down toward the wells. This pull - combined with the nearby clay layer breach - makes this site an active Aquifer threat.
The EPA has conducted soil remediation onsite to remove the source of the PCE plume. In 2023, they completed an “in-situ thermal desorption and soil vapor extraction process.” This means that they essentially heated the contaminated soil to “sweat” off the PCE in the soil. They then sucked the PCE out in a vapor form, capturing it in massive air filters onsite. This remediation ran for about 6 months in 2023.
The EPA is also mapping the plume’s spread by drilling additional monitoring wells in the area. The most recent monitoring well was drilled to 450 feet deep, next to the Sheahan Water Treatment Plant and production wells. That depth is a similar depth to production wells in the area that supply our drinking water. The location of the monitoring well and depth may imply contamination is closer than we thought.
Later this year, the EPA should release their findings and plan for future remediation. When this information is released, we will review and encourage Water Warriors to submit public comments on the plan and any identified concerns.
Check out our folder of Former Custom Cleaners resources here, which we keep updated with the latest reports from the EPA.
This Fact Sheet, released by the EPA in September 2023, provides a quick update of the recent remediation done onsite.
For the deep dive, read all 737 pages of the Final Remedial Design produced by the EPA in 2019. Or, check out the Health Study, conducted by the Tennessee Department of Health, in 2021.
The EPA also put out a Community Involvement Plan in 2017 that provides some interesting insights into the EPA's general approach to community involvement, and their plans for the site. What do you think - have they lived up to what they promised?
Visit the EPA's homepage for Former Custom Cleaners Superfund Site for the latest from the EPA, and relevant contact information. You can also sign up for the mailing list to receive updates.
