Fairhaven’s Former Atlas Tack Still Stands Decades After Closing

Not long after New Bedford began to comprehend the extent of its hazardous waste contamination nightmare, Fairhaven confronted a toxic nightmare of its own: the Atlas Tack company.

As it did with New Bedford Harbor, the Acushnet River and Sullivan's Ledge on Hathaway Road in New Bedford, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) designated the Atlas Tack property on Pleasant Street a priority Superfund cleanup site in 1990.

The cleanup of Atlas Tack took place between June 2005 and September 2007, but what remains of the old brick structure still stands shrouded in overgrown vegetation behind an anchor fence.

A portion of the former factory is visible from Pleasant Street.

Atlas Tack opened in 1901 and closed in 1985. A 2021 Standard-Times article stated the company "was the world's largest producer of wire tacks, bolts, shoe eyelets, bottle caps, and other small hardware."

According to the EPA's website, "From the 1940s to the late 1970s or 1980s, wastes containing cyanide and heavy metals were discharged into an unlined acid-neutralizing lagoon about 200 feet east of the manufacturing building and adjacent to a saltwater tidal marsh in Buzzards Bay Estuary."

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"Process wastes containing acids, metals such as copper and nickel, and solvents were discharged into drains in the floor of the main building," the EPA website states.

Soil and groundwater were reportedly contaminated by the toxic mess that leaked through the plant's floors.

According to Former Fairhaven Tourism Director Chris Richard, Great Northern Industries owns the former Atlas Tack property.

"They apparently don't respond to any contact by government officials," he said.

The Standard-Times reported there seems to be a dispute over who is responsible for demolishing the former plant.