There’s still no funding plan for cleanup at thousands of toxic sites

Michigan has more than 4,000 contaminated parcels where there is no owner liable for the hazardous pollution that remains. Cleaning up these sites and setting up long term monitoring would cost at least $10 billion dollars, but the prospects for cleanup at this point are grim — under the current state budget all funds for cleanup will be exhausted by the end of the year.

Today the Detroit News takes a look at some of the abandoned industrial lands that are contaminating groundwater and fisheries and endangering public health.

In Detroit the former Fischer Body Co. was last owned by Carter Color Coat which declared bankruptcy in 1992. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has identified PCBs and asbestos at the site and removed some materials, but the area remains dangerous.

“In its current state, the site is an acute threat to human health and safety,” a state assessment of reads. “The building has been declared ‘open and dangerous’ by the city of Detroit. Peeling lead-based paint and asbestos-containing debris may become airborne and pose a risk to human health through ingestion or inhalation.”

The neighborhood includes a few small businesses across the street and a residential area within a half-mile. In past years, Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality could have stepped in and spent the estimated $4.1 million to clean up the site with Part 201 money. But those days are gone.

At other sites groundwater contamination threatens drinking water.

In Antrim County, a groundwater plume tainted with trichloroethylene has spread six miles from a former auto parts manufacturing plant in Mancelona to a residential/golf resort area. Contamination levels are 200 times greater than what is acceptable for human health.

Now, the plume is reaching the Cedar River and threatening the nearby well field that is one of two sources for the area’s drinking water.

Hooking up residences and businesses to municipal water lines and trying to remediate the Mancelona site has already cost the state $17.8 million. To continue monitoring the plume and conducting additional line extensions, state officials estimate it will cost $10 million more.

The sort of environmental cleanup that is required at these sites was funded over the last 20 years through voter approved bond issues. The last round of funding was approved in 1998 and that money will run out this year.

The Department of Natural Resources and Environment has said that it hopes voters will see the necessity of approving more money for cleanup, but as Michigan industry continues to collapse, economic desperation has made many wary of approving new expenditures.