A recent story on Cadillacnews.com reminds us that the lawsuit filed by the state of Michigan DEQ against AAR Manufacturing is still lumbering through the court system:

The list of groundwater contaminants in a state of Michigan lawsuit against a Cadillac manufacturer can increase, Wexford County Circuit Court Judge Bill Fagerman ruled Wednesday.

Assistant attorney general Kathleen Cavanaugh sought an amendment to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s complaint against AAR Manufacturing in Cadillac.

The lawsuit, which has been ongoing for years, attempts to comply AAR to investigate two releases of trichloroethylene, or TCE, from degreasing units.

The amended complaint includes a list of contaminants along with an obsolete gasoline additive, MTBE, and other petroleum products.

The complaint also sought to enforce investigation of any other chemicals that might be discovered between now and when the lawsuit is settled should the court rule in favor of the DEQ.

AAR attorney Joseph Kuiper argued it’s late in the game to add new complaints.

"It’s always been about TCE," Kuiper said.

The Record-Eagle (Traverse City, MI) reports:

Two million dollars of relief is coming to Antrim County to make drinking water safe for those who live near one of the largest toxic chemical plumes in Michigan.

State officials released grant money to pay for a 25,000-foot-long extension to an existing public water main in Mancelona, despite a grant moratorium and budgetary woes that threaten deep spending cuts in Michigan. The project will provide a safe alternative for 80 homes and 210 vacant lots at Shanty Creek resort now plagued with risks of dangerous groundwater.

[...]

The source of the contamination is an industrial site in Mancelona, where harmful solvents were dumped for a span of two decades, long before any environmental regulations existed, said Bob Wagner, director of the state Department of Environmental Quality regional headquarters in Gaylord.

Long gone is the company that caused the pollution, but the plume now stretches more than six miles northwest and is more than a mile across, carrying with it tricholoethylene, or TCE. The poisonous chemical is not breaking down, only being diluted in the groundwater, Wagner said.

The potent, problematic plume will be discussed by state and local officials at a public forum at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Summit Conference Center at Shanty Creek.

Read more here.

Also be sure to check out this list of Frequently Asked Questions (MS Word or HTML) regarding the Mancelona TCE plume. The FAQ was created by a group calling itself ACUTE, the Antrim Coalition United Through Ecology.

The Record Eagle (Traverse County, MI) reports:

Larry Washburn figures he should get more than the list price of $134,000 for his 2,400-square- foot geodesic dome house tucked away on 20 wooded acres in a scenic area of Wexford County.

But the house has been on the market for months, even as the price dropped from $180,000. Washburn worries he won't find a buyer.

The catch is that the home is less than a mile away from the troubled Wexford County landfill, where contaminants from the dump leached into and ruined neighboring residential wells.

Washburn's water hasn't tested positive for contamination, and the house isn't located in an at-risk zone, but Washburn believes buyers are scared off by its proximity to the dump.

"I ain't in the box and I still can't get nobody to look at it," Washburn said, referring to a contamination zone where tainted water required some residents to have new wells drilled.

[...]

Washburn isn't alone among Cedar Creek Township residents who are fed up with the contamination. Several are in a fight with county officials over an alternate water supply and many of them want a municipal water system, believing it's the only way to remove the tainted water stigma.

Some in the county — including Wexford County commission chair Larry Copley — want a study of a "deep well" solution. Copley said the decision ultimately will rest with the DEQ, whose officials will determine whether deeper wells are a viable alternative to a municipal supply.

Read the full story

CJ's Excavating of Cadillac (MI) was awarded a nearly $3 million contract to begin removing trash from the Wexford County landfill. Meanwhile, TCE was found at 13 parts per billion in a new test well near the landfill, which "creates more questions than answers," says Department of Public Works director John Divozzo.

Read the story here.

The Cadillac News (Detroit, MI) reports that residents and officials have been digging into the history of the Wexford County landfill. Meanwhile the Department of Public Works is holding a meeting tonight at 7:00 pm.

From the article:

"As a result of the current landfill issue, Cedar Creek Township, with the help of county residents who volunteered their time and professional expertise, began an exhaustive research of the public record in regards to the landfill," Pat Buttermore, the township clerk told county commissioners recently. "Although we tried to present an unbiased report the facts speak for themselves."

[...]

The Department of Public Works board meets 7 p.m. today under scrutiny to try and formulate a new set of rates for the landfill in the wake of the defeat of a plan that could have brought in out-of-county waste.

[...]

Partial landfill timeline

Feb. 1973 - Wexford County granted landfill license with stipulation: "No volatile wastes without special plan being submitted and approved"

Aug. 1975 - Hydro geologic studies show groundwater flow "generally to the north"

Jan. 1976: Health department alerts county to unlicensed disposal of industrial wastes

Sept. 1978 - Landfill license expires, operations continue

Sept. 1981 - Health department samples residential wells along U.S. 131

Nov. 1982 - Report of a Cadillac company dumping chemicals into landfill

April 1984 - DPW refuses to spend funds for water studies and wells

April 1985 - DPW board votes to close landfill

June 1985 - Private well on border of landfill contains traces of benzene

June 1985 - County board passes motion to delay landfill closure

Oct. 1985 - Volatile organic compounds found in additional monitor wells

Nov. 1987 - County commission votes to keep landfill open and work toward licensure

Feb. 2000 - Landfill funds used for county emergency radio project

July 2002 - County board agrees to pay the DEQ $27,500 for violations at the landfill that included excessive amounts of scrap tires being stored at the landfill

April 2004 - State funded residential well tests find volatile organic compounds

June 2005 - County approves $2 million 'bioreactor' cell

Source: Cedar Creek Township's 'The Wexford County Landfill'

Read the full story.

...to keep people safer from TCE, please encourage them to contact:



Jody Milanese (millaneese) in Congresswoman Sue Kelly's office at 202-225-5441

The Northern Express (Northern Michigan) sums up with Trashed...Landfill neighbors fear the creep of groundwater pollution by Anne Stanton:

THE ISSUES:

• A landfill constructed on sandy soil is leaching cancer-causing chemicals into the groundwater.
• Wexford County wants to bring in more trash from nine surrounding counties.
• Wexford residents pay some of the highest rates in the region for trash disposal...
• ... but industry pays some of the lowest rates.

At a time when dozens of Manton residents fear their water might be poisoned from a nearby landfill, there's a plan on the table to import even more trash from nine other counties.

The county commissioners of Wexford County say they are spending millions of dollars to protect against future pollution and can be trusted to oversee a landfill that won't leak toxins in the future. But residents feel the risks are too high.

This is a story of trying to balance big profits from the county-owned landfill with the health and property values of a small group of families in Cedar Creek Township.

Read more.

According to the Traverse City Record Eagle (MI), the Department of Environmental Quality has approved funding for clean-up of a PCE plume:

The DEQ money will be used in an area just west of downtown off M-88 to address public health risks from tetrachloroethylene, or PCE, a known carcinogen that is a byproduct of solvents used at a former dry cleaner. A DEQ investigation identified excessive levels of PCE in both soil and groundwater, and excessive air concentrations inside some nearby homes, spokesman Robert McCann said.

[...]

Mancelona Area Water and Sewer Authority administrator Gary Knapp said he was "really gratified" the DEQ is addressing the PCE problem. But another large area of groundwater contamination will need attention and probably much more money, he said.

Knapp referred to a more than 6-mile-long, 1-mile-wide plume of groundwater contamination containing trichloroethylene, or TCE. The plume extends from the village northwest toward Schuss Mountain and Bellaire.

Read the full story.

The Ann Arbor News (MI) reports:

Crews working for Eaton Corp. have nearly completed six months of excavation of contaminated soil at the auto supplier's former manufacturing plant at South First and West William streets.

But some pollution has made its way into underground water off the downtown Ann Arbor site. Company officials say the contamination doesn't appear to pose any health or safety problems to the surrounding residences, but the company may be asked by the state to take steps to neutralize the chemicals.

[...]

The soil is contaminated with an industrial solvent called trichlorethene, or trichloroethylene, and some gasoline, Allen said. "The type of contamination we were removing were petroleum products and cleaning solvents that were used at the facility over the 100-plus years it was in existence."

Read the full story.

After declaring that indoor air is safe at Norris Elementary, the EPA announced that it is warding against future risk of exposure by removing contaminants from under the school.

The Detroit News (MI) reports:

The village planning commission approved the final site plan of American Compounding to build a 15,000-square-foot thermoplastic plant in a former contaminated industrial site in the center of the village. Plans are to build on 4.3 acres of the 11-acre parcel at the former Stanley Tools factory at Frank Street and Veterans Drive. The site of the former factory that was torn down more than a decade ago went through a $7 million environmental cleanup for trichloroethylene (TCE) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), as well as stabilizing the migration of contaminated groundwater into the nearby Red Cedar River. Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls acquired the site in 1996, and in February 2003 it reached an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up the site.

Michigan law firm Boss & Glazier has established a news page dedicated to the class action contamination lawsuit against Delphi. The firm has been designated as class counsel in the matter of Kelly Koszewski-Jones, et. al. vs. Delphi Corp., Case No. 04-09808-CE, pending in the Kent County Circuit Court.

Currently, the page is home to the complaint, the notice of class certification, and a proposed class list, among other things.

According to this report in the Grand Rapids Press (MI):

The gap in time leads some neighbors to question why Delphi and government agencies did not do more to protect the neighborhood near Burton Street and Burlingame Avenue SW.

State and federal officials say it's possible the leak -- which they say is not a health risk because it does not threaten the water supply-- reached the neighborhood years ago.

[...]

Carole Bos, a Grand Rapids attorney representing about 290 property owners, said the company likely could have kept from contaminating neighborhood groundwater -- and lowering property values -- if it had drilled monitoring wells years ago near its northern border.

Delphi, the city and the state were aware in 1987 that vinyl chloride was in the groundwater directly beneath the plant, records show. It showed up in some monitoring wells drilled near the site of an underground storage tank.

The report also provides a decent summary of the whole Delphi contamination story. Read more here.

The Cadillac News reports:

Wexford County commissioners agreed there is need for emergency funding at the landfill.

Commissioners voted unanimously to enact the county's emergency purchasing policy following a presentation by CTI and Associates about a waste cleanup dilemma at the county landfill.

Read the full story.

Today's Cadillac News reports:

[Homeowner Rita] McNamara and husband, Jon Bennett, plan to be at the Department of Public Works meeting 7 p.m. today to ask the county to pay for the extra costs involved in drilling their new well.

"These new restrictions resulted in an increased cost to us of $2,870," McNamara wrote to DPW Director John Divozzo in an e-mail. "The county's failure to maintain the [Wexford County] landfill in an environmentally safe manner has caused us great anxiety and nearly $3,000. We are seeking at least the reimbursement of the additional costs incurred by us due to this situation."

Divozzo said he believes the board will look favorably on her request.

A judge just approved a class action lawsuit against Delphi Corp. stemming from migrating groundwater contamination that has reached a large Wyoming, MI neighborhood. The main contaminant of concern, vinyl chloride, resulted from the natural degradation of TCE, known to have emanated from the Delphi (and former General Motors Corp.) site.

An exhaustive investigation of the indoor air at Norris Elementary School found no danger to students or staff, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reported.

Read the full story in the Traverse City Record Eagle.

The state of Michigan has filed suit against AAR Mobility Systems in Cadillac (MI). After arriving at an agreement with AAR that requires the company to remediate its own alleged 1985 release of trichloroethylene (TCE) into soil and groundwater, AAR allegedly released more TCE into the environment in 1996 and has now lost control of the clean-up:

The state is seeking reimbursement from AAR in an alleged failure to comply with an Administrative Order issued by the Department of Environmental Quality in August 2003.

On behalf of the DEQ, Attorney General Mike Cox filed the complaint in Wexford County Circuit Court asking the court system to enforce AAR's compliance with the order.

"It's basically an action we've had to take to get AAR to comply with the order we've issued," said Steve Cunningham, environmental quality specialist with the DEQ office in Cadillac.

Additionally, the DEQ is seeking reimbursement of state response activity costs and fines and penalties for AAR's failure to comply with the original order.

In response, AAR claims they are fulfilling their obligations and cite lack of drinking water and residential contamination findings as evidence.

For more, read the full story in today's Cadillac News.

More from the GAO Report, as promised. Please bear in mind:

· 85% of the sites below were discovered 15 yrs ago or more
· over 60% of the potentially eligible sites and over 35% of all sites below report no clean-up activities

---
Table IV.1: Sites Classified as Awaiting an NPL Decision in Each State, by Eligibility for Listing and Status of Cleanup Progress
+
Table VI.1: State Officials’ Assessments of States’ Financial Capabilities to Clean Up Potentially Eligible Sites

State	Number of sites classified as awaiting an NPL decision	Number of sites unlikely to become eligible for the NPL	Number of potentially eligible sites with some cleanup activities	Number of potentially eligible sites with no reported cleanup activities	Number of sites for which no surveys were received	State officials’ assessment of state’s financial capability to clean up potentially eligible sites
Alabama	25	10	7	8	0	Very poor
Alaska	28	14	8	6	0	Excellent
Arizona	34	16	10	8	0	Excellent
Arkansas	4	3	0	1	0	Good
California	a 189	64	51	74	0	Fair
Colorado	30	12	10	6	2	Very poor
Connecticut	290	74	98	118	0	Poor
Delaware	1	1	0	0	0	Excellent
District of Columbia	a 1	0	0	1	0
Florida	269	74	85	110	0	Fair
Georgia	74	39	8	27	0	Poor
Guam	2	2	0	0	0
Hawaii	17	12	4	1	0	Fair
Idaho	16	5	5	6	0	*
Illinois	207	95	43	69	0	Fair
Indiana	54	21	15	18	0	Very poor
Iowa	33	29	4	0	0	Very poor
Kansas	37	28	4	5	0	Very poor
Kentucky	20	15	2	3	0	Good
Louisiana	10	6	4	0	0	Poor
Maine	56	28	17	11	0	Poor
Maryland	20	8	4	8	0	Other b
Massachusetts	a 201	11	19	171	0	Fair
Michigan	50	22	18	10	0	Excellent
Midway Island	1	1	0	0	0
Minnesota	17	6	6	5	0	Good
Mississippi	9	4	1	2	2	Very poor
Missouri	91	73	7	11	0	*
Montana	11	2	7	2	0	Very poor
Navajo Nation	14	0	0	14	0
Nebraska	a 36	16	4	15	1	Very poor
Nevada	12	8	3	1	0	Poor
New Hampshire	42	24	9	9	0	Poor
New Jersey	172	60	49	63	0	Good
New Mexico	15	7	6	2	0	Very poor
New York	a 192	135	15	41	1	*
North Carolina	57	18	21	18	0	Poor
North Dakota	4	2	1	1	0	Poor
Northern Mariana Islands	1	0	1	0	0
Ohio	79	25	23	31	0	Very poor
Oklahoma	7	4	1	2	0	Very poor
Oregon	29	7	6	16	0	Fair
Pennsylvania	73	35	18	20	0	Excellent
Puerto Rico	16	3	4	9	0
Rhode Island	121	14	23	84	0	Poor
South Carolina	45	32	8	5	0	Good
South Dakota	8	6	2	0	0	Other b
Tennessee	102	51	19	32	0	Poor
Texas	21	18	1	2	0	Poor
Utah	48	17	8	16	7	*
Vermont	30	16	5	9	0	Poor
Virginia	22	8	2	12	0	*
Washington	28	11	8	9	0	Fair
West Virginia	11	7	4	0	0	Other b
Wisconsin	53	34	8	11	0	Excellent
Wyoming	1	1	0	0	0
Total	3,036	1,234	686	1,103	13

a California, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, and Nebraska did not respond to surveys. For these states, the data in table IV.1 are based on EPA’s survey responses alone and, for that reason, may be less reliable than for states having responses from both EPA and states. New York provided responses to only a few questions in our survey.

b “Other” indicates that the respondent was uncertain about the state’s financial capability.

* State officials in Idaho, New York, Missouri, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming declined to participate in [the] telephone survey.

DuPage County officials say they will meet with homeowners in unincorporated Downers Grove Township and investigate whether hookups to Lake Michigan water that were prompted because their well water was tainted with cancer-causing chemicals were done in a shoddy and perhaps even dangerous way.

About a half-dozen residents raised the issues (free reg req'd) to County Board members this week, arguing that 50 to 60 homes connected at the beginning of the project were completed with plastic rather than copper pipes, and were not up to code.