Qualla: Fike Chemical https://qualla.com/fike-chemical en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:06 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Fike Chemical https://qualla.com/fike-chemical Fike Chemical: Introduction https://qualla.com/fike-chemical/ When CBS sent Lesley Stahl to a small chemical plant in Nitro, West Virginia, for a 60 Minutes segment, she introduced the broadcast with one of the bluntest opening lines of her career: 'Now we take you to the messiest place we've ever been.' The plant was Fike Chemical, an eleven-acre facility on the Kanawha River that had been operating since 1971 inside the brick buildings of a World War One nitrocellulose factory. Fike specialized in chemical jobs the big companies would not touch, and the way it kept those jobs profitable was simple: do not pay for waste disposal. Pour it into the ground. Drum it without labels. Let the lagoons fill up. By the time the EPA arrived to clean up, they would find ten thousand unlabeled barrels of unidentified chemicals, exposed sodium metal, a cylinder of hydrogen cyanide, and dioxin in the soil.

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/fike-chemical-wp/dnvf-fike-chemical-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Fike Chemical: Elmer Fike's Business Model https://qualla.com/fike-chemical/ Elmer Fike founded Fike Chemical in 1971. The eleven-acre site he chose had been a federal nitrocellulose plant during World War One - one of the original reasons Nitro, West Virginia exists as a town. The brick buildings were still standing, the rail spurs were in place, and the...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/fike-chemical-wp/dnvf-fike-chemical-elmer-fikes-business-model.mp3 0:06 2 full Fike Chemical: The Sodium Explosion https://qualla.com/fike-chemical/ Among Fike's accepted jobs was the disposal of the liquid sodium coolant from the decommissioned Fermi 1 nuclear reactor near Detroit, Michigan. Sodium metal reacts violently with water. The standard disposal method involves controlled reaction in a contained facility. Fike's met...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/fike-chemical-wp/dnvf-fike-chemical-the-sodium-explosion.mp3 0:06 3 full Fike Chemical: The EPA Arrives https://qualla.com/fike-chemical/ After the 60 Minutes broadcast, the EPA admitted in public statements that the Fike site had 'fallen through the cracks' of federal regulation. By 1982, the agency had reached an agreement with Fike on soil and water testing and a remediation program. In 1983, the mayor of Nitro ...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/fike-chemical-wp/dnvf-fike-chemical-the-epa-arrives.mp3 0:06 4 full Fike Chemical: The Long Cleanup https://qualla.com/fike-chemical/ Federal cleanup of the Fike site took more than two decades. Drums had to be opened and contents identified one at a time. Lagoons were excavated and the contaminated soils removed. The decision was made to thermally treat the soils on site rather than ship them out for incinerat...

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]]> Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/d/n/v/f/fike-chemical-wp/dnvf-fike-chemical-the-long-cleanup.mp3 0:06 5 full