Ability Drum Company

The Ability Drum Company was a rural Washington business that existed from the mid-1960s into the 1980s. Its focus was to clean and recondition barrels and drums used by various local businesses, many of which contained harmful chemicals. When Ability Drum cleaned the drums, it could not let the refuse water and debris drain into the local water system due to the toxicity of the drum contents, so it built a lagoon on the property that it started to fill with the castoff wastewater.

Ability Drum was located on School Street, at the bottom adjacent to Farm Creek. After crossing the railroad tracks from the north, you would make an immediate right onto a long driveway to the business.

In 1978, the Love Canal scandal erupted in Niagara Falls, New York, where a subdivision of over 100 homes was built on top of an old chemical dump site.  This led to health problems and a higher rate of congenital disabilities among residents in the area.  The fear at the time was that there were probably many sites like Love Canal all across the country.

On June 13, 1980, Ability Drum ceased operation, and the property became vacant.  Local columnist Don Breese wrote an article in December 1980 warning that we had our own Love Canal right here in Tazewell County, writing about a pond of sludge that was a ticking time bomb if not dealt with.  He did not disclose the location in the article but referred to the Ability Drum lagoon.  Residents and the Tazewell County Health Department had complained about the lagoon to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA) as early as 1975, always falling on deaf ears.  Ability Drum had secured a permit from the IEPA for the construction and existence of the lagoon, which was first built in the 1960s but expanded in 1976 as a temporary wastewater pond.  Breese contended that there was no oversight, and the property's condition was becoming dangerous.

Everything changed in 1982. On January 21 of that year, the IEPA issued a statement describing the area it had previously deemed safe as a threat to area water systems. Besides the lagoon, which was filled and showed signs of past overflowing, several 55-gallon drums were on the property. Ability Drum assured the IEPA that the site would be cleaned up.

What follows is a timeline of the cleanup of the property, now known as 1344 School Street.

March 1982

With high water levels threatening overflow, IEPA ordered raising the berms around the lagoon.

June 1982

Illinois Attorney General Ty Fahner filed a preliminary court order in Tazewell County requiring the owners to clean up the site. The order required the wastewater in the lagoon to be removed and cleansed within 30 days.

November 1982

With the site still not cleaned up, the IEPA filed a contempt petition against Ability Drum’s owners.

March 1983

Ability Drum was found in contempt of the suit.

July 1983

Thinking the site had been cleaned up, the City of Washington Public Works Committee recommended accepting the lagoon water into the city’s sewer system.  Site owner Bill Hammond’s rationale to the committee was that since there were so many frogs in the lagoon, it posed no threat.  The IEPA disapproved of this, contending that most contaminants would be in the sludge at the bottom, which could be stirred up during removal.   Up to this point, Ability Drum had transferred all their cleanup wastes to the Indian Creek Landfill near Hopedale, also owned by Ability Drum administrators.  Mayor Ron Marshall learned of the contempt motion days after the Public Works committee meeting. He requested that the city council not follow the recommendation to approve the water into the city’s sewer system.

August 1983

With patience running thin, Illinois Attorney General Neil Hartigan threatened jail time in the media for Ability Drum owners if they did not get the site cleaned up.

October 1983

At another Washington Public Works committee meeting, a proposal was agreed upon for Ability Drum to dispose of their refuse in Washington’s sewer system for the exorbitant cost of $12.50 per thousand gallons, six times the normal treatment rate.

January 1984

With the IEPA's approval, the Washington City Council approved a contract with Ability Drum to dispose of wastewater in the city's sewer system.

September 1984

The City Council cut a new deal with Ability Drum for the last portion of the wastewater (1.3 million gallons), cutting their rate from $12.50 per thousand gallons to $6.25.

June 1985

With the site still not cleaned up, the IEPA took over the cleanup responsibility. Their initial projections are that the cost will run around $500,000, with plans to sue the owners and businesses for three times that. The cleanup was part of the state’s “Clean Illinois” program of 1984.

July 1985

The Haztech company of Sylvania, Ohio, was given the contract to clean up the site for $160,000

August 1985

With an order from Judge Ivan Yontz, Ability Drum officials consented to the cleanup starting August 12, 1985.  After eight days, work was stopped after the surprising discovery of 6,000 gallons of sludge containing high levels of PCB, a cancer-causing agent.  This would force a new contract agreement with Haztech.  Before the work stoppage, more than 120 barrels to be disposed of had been found on the site.

September 1985

Acting on two anonymous tips, the Haztech company discovered more than eighty barrels buried on the property, most of which contained the same PCB-laden sludge. 

October 1985

With winter on the horizon, the IEPA sealed the site from public use. At this point, costs had ballooned to over $300,000, and estimates now ran anywhere from $1 million to $5 million to complete the job. 

November 1985

With details of the chemical agents found emerging at the site, the focus was also put on the Hopedale landfill as now possibly contaminated.  Water sources around the Hopedale site were tested and found to be safe.  The IEPA started to feel some heat in the press for approving the water dumping there and in the Washington sewer system.

June 1986

The process of cleaning up the Ability Drum site resumed with contracting Phase II of the project.  Haztech again won the bid.

November 1986

Work finally began on Phase II on November 3, 1986, and more previously unknown barrels were unearthed.

May 1987

With costs now running over $700,000, Phase III of the project began.  The Envirodyne company out of St. Louis was called to ensure all barrels had been found and to conduct extensive soil sampling.

October 1988

Phase IV involved the excavation of the lagoon by Peoria Disposal Company, disposing of 200,000 gallons of water collected over the years and 3,500 cubic yards of sediment and contaminated soil.  The IEPA offered the land to the Tazewell County Board as an extension of Farmdale Park, which the Board unanimously declined. The State, not yet owning the land, assumed they would be granted ownership in the lawsuit to recoup the cleanup costs.  The final cleanup costs were around $1 million, and the project was completed in November 1988.

Throughout the 1990s, the land lay barren and became a magnet for nefarious activity.  In 1995, the State of Illinois sued 47 companies to reclaim their funds, filing a $2.1 million lawsuit.  Any company that patronized the Ability Drum Company to recondition their barrels was named in the lawsuit, including Caterpillar, Keystone Steel, Morton Metalcraft, Peoria Tube Forming Corp., Texaco, International Paper Co., Shell Chemical, Monsanto, and John Deere.

When the case was finally settled in January 2000, the State of Illinois recouped approximately $1.7 million, settling with each company individually.

The property was sold in a tax sale and is now a private residence.