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Short abstract:

Known as the “City of Water,” Martinsville, Indiana, both overlays and draws its water from a groundwater body contaminated with multiple toxic chemical plumes. The highly volatile nature of these contaminants troubles efforts to manage and mitigate risks associated with toxic exposures there.

Long abstract:

Known as the “City of Water,” Martinsville, Indiana, USA is an almost exclusively white community of about 11,500 residents located on the east bank of the so-called White River. Still recognized throughout the region as a stronghold of the KKK, Martinsville was once famous for the healing powers of its mineral artesian spring waters. Today, the city both overlays and draws its water from a groundwater body contaminated with at least four plumes of tetrachloroethylene (also known as PCE or perc), a toxic and highly volatile organic compound released by now defunct and still operating industries. Martinsville’s residents experience the highest rates of cancer incidence in the state of Indiana as a whole and their city’s mascot is still a literal well. Based on several years of ethnographic and historical research alongside residents and in conversation with state and federal agencies in and about these particular plumes and their potential health effects, this paper examines how the highly volatile nature of PCE (which, amongst much else, may transform into even more toxic substances when exposed to oxygen) troubles efforts to manage the health and reputational risks associated with exposures to these plumes and their byproducts. Differently situated plumes, residents, and agencies enact distinct conceptual and material versions of toxic plumes in Martinsville. Focusing on efforts to conceal and contain the realities of PCE – a chemical almost impossible to apprehend by the senses – this paper concludes with contemporary efforts to heal toxic harms there (for both better and worse).