Elk Mills Campus
About the Elk Mills Campus
- Home to 3 facilities supporting medical, materials, and fabric innovation
- Produces medical components, high-performance fabric laminates, adhesives and PharmBIO products
What We’re Testing For
- We’re investigating the area surrounding the Elk Mills Campus for presence of PFOA (a type of PFAS) in groundwater and soil
- All our testing is guided by data and science, and is done in coordination with Maryland Department of Environment (MDE)
Recent Testing Activities
- Dec 2024–Jan 2025: Added 3 more monitoring wells to refine groundwater data
- Oct 2024: Collected 11 soil samples from 6 EMV locations
- Mar 2024: Installed 8 monitoring wells at Elk Mills 5
Stay Informed
- Please continue to monitor this site as a resource for the most up-to-date information regarding testing and data at Elk Mills Campus.
- For specific questions, please email: [email protected]
Monitoring Well Locations
This aerial image shows the Elk Mills facility in Cecil County and highlights Gore’s environmental monitoring efforts — specifically tracking groundwater near the site:
• Shallow Monitoring Well: These are groundwater wells installed close to the surface to test for PFOA and related substances.
• Bedrock Monitoring Well: These wells reach deeper into the ground to detect contamination in bedrock aquifers.
Groundwater Monitoring Well Results Map
Monitoring Well Locations
An Overview of Monitoring Activity
- Gore has installed over 100 monitoring wells within close proximity to our operations in Cecil County, with 22 located around the Elk Mills campus. Sampling includes both shallow and deep wells, along with soil borings and residential water testing.
- We’ve placed wells near streams and ditches around Elk Mills so we can track whether PFOA is moving through surface water or potentially reaching local waterways.
- Testing at Elk Mills covers multiple depths and directions. Wells are set at both shallow and deep levels, and in various directions around the site to get a full picture of how groundwater is flowing in this specific area.
- Well locations help us understand how water moves in Elkton’s terrain. Cecil County’s landscape includes rolling elevations and seasonal water changes. By spacing wells at different distances from Elk Mills and nearby water features, we can track movement more accurately over time.
- This protects more than just the immediate facility. Understanding how groundwater flows around the Elk Mills campus helps us protect the broader Elkton community, especially in residential areas where wells or ditches may connect to larger water systems.
Latest Testing Updates
About the Campus
Gore’s Elk Mills campus was established in the late 1990s and is located on Vieve’s Way, which is named after Genevieve Gore, who founded W. L. Gore & Associates with her husband Bill. The Elk Mills campus is comprised of three facilities. These facilities are responsible for the development, production, testing and sale of high-performance fabrics laminates; development and manufacture of products for the life sciences industries including biopharmaceuticals and medical device components; and material science research and development as well as the production of a range of materials including adhesives, which are supplied to other Gore facilities for the manufacture of end products.
Facilities
Learn more about the investigations we conducted in each of our Cecil County facilities
Additional Resources
To learn more about our community efforts and find resources to help address PFAS-related concerns, visit our News & Updates or FAQs.