Fell Iron & Metal

Fell Iron & Metal was a company at 503 N. Rogers Street. It was originally founded around 1916 by Irving Fell. The company became infamous as the location of massive PCB contamination on the site.

In 1988 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sued both Fell and Westinghouse to recover the cost of removing 361 PCB-laden capacitors from the site. The capacitors were apparently deposited at the salvage yard by a previous owner around 1960, long before the dangers of PCBs were known. Roughly 27,000 tons of contaminated soil were then stored on-site, sealed in a heavy plastic cover, while various groups wrestled over its final disposition.

In 1996, an agreement was reached and the soil was transferred by rail to a landfill in Utah. That same year, Harold Dumes bought the company from his aunt, Mildred Dansker, and renamed it to Bloomington Iron and Metal.