Whiff of Phenol Spells Trouble

by Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica, June 21, 2012, 10 a.m.

The stench of phenol was overpowering, wafting from mud taken from a layer of rock thousands of feet beneath southern Ohio.

It was 1989 and workers for the Aristech Chemical Corp. had begun drilling a disposal well for dangerous, chemical-laden waste from the company's acetone manufacturing plant in Haverhill.