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A History of Events

The companies named as defendants in the McCullom Lake cancer lawsuits have histories that date back more than a century. At right is a timeline detailing some events in the company’s histories, including problems with contamination at their Ringwood sites.

Joy Morton acquires a controlling interest in Richmond & Co., a salt distributor, and re-names it Joy Morton & Co. Despite several name changes over the next century, the Morton name would stay.

Otto Haas moves to Philadelphia to open up an American branch of the company he co-founded with Otto Rohm. The company now generates more than $8 billion a year in business.

Modine Manufacturing is founded in Racine, Wis. The company today does about $1.7 billion a year in business.

An abandoned dairy in Ringwood is converted by Edwal Laboratories to chemical manufacturing.

Morton acquires the Ringwood chemical plant.

Morton begins disposing chemical wastes into an 8-acre landfill on the southwest portion of its Ringwood facility.

Modine Manufacturing Co. starts operation at its present facility on Ringwood Road, south of Morton and its landfill.

Modine begins dumping liquid waste into a disposal pit.

Morton’s plant safety engineer reports to a senior executive in a confidential memo that the landfill was seeping its contents into groundwater. This information is not shared with state or federal regulatory agencies.

Two hundred gallons of a 50-50 mix of dichloropropane and dichloropropene are spilled at the Morton site.

Morton ceases dumping into its landfill, following a ruling by the Illinois Pollution Control Board investigating odor complaints by residents. In 1978, workers cap it with 6 inches of soil and seed it, and add a synthetic cap in 1986.

A railroad tanker valve left open for hours on the Morton site releases volatile organic compounds of an unknown quantity.

Modine closes its liquid waste disposal pit.

Morton reports to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency that testing of an on-site well revealed contaminated groundwater.

Morton begins installing monitoring wells to determine the extent of contamination under the site. Later reports blamed volatile organic compound contamination on the landfill, retention pond discharge and the railroad tank car spill.

Modine Manufacturing Co. begins assessing groundwater after two underground storage tanks are found and removed. One is 8,000 gallons used to store blended toluene and naphtha, and the other was a 550-gallon gas tank. Subsequent investigations show that the tanks and the former disposal pit have leaked their contents.

Morton installs a groundwater remediation system consisting of three recovery wells and an air stripper.

A study concludes that the Morton remediation system was not containing the plume, in large part because the system never operated above 25 percent of capacity to comply with state discharge limits. The study also concludes that the contamination plumes from both Morton and Modine had co-mingled.

Rohm and Haas acquires Morton International for $5 billion in June, and therefore inherits Morton’s facility in Ringwood. Rohm and Haas formally takes ownership on Jan. 1, 2005.

Rohm and Haas designs an extensive upgrade to the remediation system, including new recovery wells.

The new water treatment system starts up in the summer after a protracted process to get an IEPA wastewater discharge permit.

An explosion at the Rohm and Haas plant releases 568 pounds of 1,1-dichloroethylene.

• April 25 – Attorney Aaron Freiwald files the first three lawsuits – two on behalf of sick residents, and a class-action lawsuit on behalf of village residents.

The number of plaintiffs stands at 22. Plaintiff Judith Weisheit dies, and another relapses.

A U.S. District Court judge is expected to rule in February on the merits of the class-action lawsuit. The first six individual lawsuits could be ready for trial by summer.

SOURCES: Studies from consulting firms IT Corp., Geraghty & Miller, Geomatrix, URS Corp.; the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. EPA; plaintiff lawsuits.

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