The McKin Site

One day I hope to begin my freshman science class with the following paragraph:

“Reports of groundwater and soil contamination began in 1973, when residents in East Gray reported odors in well waters and discoloration of laundry.”  Over the next three years your task will be to figure out why and to develop a plan to prevent future residents from encountering these same problems.

As we walked back from a potential field trip location a coworker and I were batting ideas back and forth.  My coworker, Pete, knocked one out of the park.  His idea was that every student who passed through our high school science program, at the end of their experience visit some location and conduct a complete analysis of the site using knowledge from all of their science courses.  As an example he mentioned the McKin site.

Between 1964 and 1978 the McKin Company operated a petroleum/ chemical waste disposal site/ transfer center in Gray.  Throughout this time the company stored, buried, incinerated and dumped waste on its property.  In addition to the problems mentioned above, these actions resulted in a whole host of other problems many of which may fall in line with state science standards.

From an Earth science perspective, the problem is a watershed issue.  While the company may have never set foot (or toxic waste) off their property it didn’t stop people from needing to hold their nose while they drank their tap water.  How might the water move from ground to well, and through what does it pass to get there?

From a biology perspective, the problem may be fish or soil organisms.  Chemistry may look at it from the vantage point of the hydrocarbons that were dumped there decades ago, but still remain a concern.  Physics may study the effects of density on the pollutant plumes movement across the landscape.  The possibilities are endless. 

The idea may be great, but of course the devil is in the details.  It’s possible that the science is too advanced for high school students, or the topics are not sufficiently aligned with the standards, or that we’ll never be given enough time to coordinate the effort amongst all of those teachers.  Over the next week or so (if we have the time) I hope to collect information on a few other sites that might fit the requirements of a high school science capstone.


"McKin Company Superfund Site." Contaminated Site Clean-Up Information (CLU-IN): Providing Information about Innovative Treatment, Characterization, and Monitoring Technologies While Acting as a Forum for All Waste Remediation Stakeholders. Web. 01 Dec. 2011. <http://www.clu-in.org/products/costperf/THRMDESP/Mckin.htm>.