It manufactured food processing and packaging equipment. TCE and PCE were common liquid solvents used regularly to degrease and clean heavy equipment and other metal products manufactured there. Beatrice did not own the tannery long and sold it back to the employees five years later in 1983. However, Beatrice was still required to retain liability for any pollution impacts. The Riley Tannery was opened in 1910.
Tanneries are notoriously dirty.
They use and dispose of all kinds of chemicals, metals and acids, in the curing and processing of cattle hides into fine leathers for shoes, belts, and jackets. Northeast of the tannery was the 15acre parcel, undeveloped land that the tannery had purchased in the 1950s for its water supply. Schlichtmann alleged that the Riley Tannery regularly dumped the used waste chemicals on the ground at the plant an on the adjacent 15 acre property, allowing the toxic chemicals to leachate down into the aquifer and pollute the drinking water supplies. Schlichtmann alleged that the chemicals flowed about 700 feet northeast into wells G and H. Riley sold the tannery to a group of longtime employees in 1985. Riley Tannery shutdown its business permanently January 1, 1989.