Refinery neighbors have toxic legacy in Muskegon, Michigan

March 1, 2008 - George and Sandy Carroll love the Muskegon Township homestead they bought in 1994.

They expected to live there the rest of their lives.

They knew the neighborhood's groundwater was contaminated by petroleum products from Marathon's long-closed oil refinery site a short distance to the northeast. Marathon had test wells all over the place, including several on the Carrolls' land. They knew Marathon had bought other nearby homes and torn them down.

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Congressional committee probes killing of Great Lakes cancer report

February 21, 2008 - The U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology is investigating allegations that the nation’s top public-health agency has blocked publication of a study that links industrial contaminants to cancer and increased infant mortality in the Great Lakes states.

In 2001, the International Joint Commission, a U.S.-Canadian organization that manages shared waterways and monitors pollution, requested a report that would look at the potential human health impact of environmental contamination in 26 “Areas of Concern” across the Great Lakes.

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Study links water pollution to cancer in Macomb County Michigan

February 20, 2008 - An unreleased federal report asserts a link between industrial pollution in the Clinton and St. Clair rivers and high cancer rates among the Macomb County population.

The 400-page document prepared for the Centers for Disease Control studied 26 pollution hot spots across the Great Lakes and compared the prevalence of chemical contaminants in the waterways with an array of health problems: infant mortality, coronary heart disease, low birth weight babies and several types of cancer.

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Toxic cleanup fund empty; Michigan DEQ may seek statewide bond

February 8, 2008 - The state Department of Environmental Quality has run out of money for toxic site cleanups and brownfield redevelopment projects.

Thousands of contaminated sites in the Saginaw Bay area and elsewhere will sit unaddressed until a new funding source is found, said DEQ Director Steven E. Chester.

"That's not good for public health and the environment and municipalities that want to reinvigorate contaminated areas in their community," Chester said.

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First owner of house near toxic site in Michigan got cancer

January 29, 2008 - When Beth Agle and her family first visited the vacant, 1-acre site of their future home on S. Morrish Road in Gaines Township, they thought it was everything they had been searching for.

But unknown to them, a quarter-mile away was the site of the former Berlin & Farro dump, once considered one of the nation's worst toxic waste sites.

In 2000, Agle, her husband and two daughters moved into the home. Three years later, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer that quickly spread to her bladder, colon and abdominal wall. Now she has learned that two members of the family that purchased her home also have been diagnosed with cancer. And they learned of their illnesses about three years after moving in, just as she did.

And like Ron Voelker and his daughter, Shyra, she believes well water at the home could be the cause.

"I wasn't aware of the site being there," said Agle, 44, who now lives in Flint Township and said she still did not know about it when the house was sold. "We drank out of the well all the time and we didn't think anything of it. We did everything, and now it makes me wonder."

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Suit against Dow for contamination should be class action, Michigan court says

January 26, 2008 - A citizen lawsuit alleging damages caused by contamination from Dow Chemical Co. should become a class action, the Michigan Court of Appeals said in a decision released Friday.

Those who sued the chemical giant claim that dioxin from Dow's Midland plant got into the Tittabawassee River and contaminated their properties, reducing home values and making homes hard to sell.

The lawsuit seeks to cover anyone who lives in the 100-year floodplain, which could be as many as 2,000 people, the court said.

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10 year old gas station leak in Holland Michigan will take 10 more years to clean

January 24, 2008 - An underground gasoline leak in Holland's Midtown neighborhood at least a decade old is slated to be cleaned up over the next 10 years.

A since-demolished Amoco gas station and the existing South River Shell Mini-mart have contributed to the contamination and both are paying for the clean up, said Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Hydrogeologist Chris Christensen.

The plume of gasoline extends from the Shell station on the southeast corner of River Avenue and 15th Street north across 15th.

Leaks are a common problem, said Christensen, who works in the remediation and redevelopment division -- so are contamination plumes.

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Contamination has Reached West Grand Traverse Bay from a Superfund site in Greilickville Michigan

December 24, 2007 - Acknowledgment from the Environmental Protection Agency that the presence of contaminants has reached West Grand Traverse Bay from a Superfund site in Greilickville has prompted a call to support an aggressive extraction and treatment plan.

Water samples from the bay surface taken by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality have detected the presence of contaminants from the long-closed commercial laundry, documenting that the contamination plume is entering the bay.

“We should all be concerned. We’re here because of the water and our tourism industry depends on the water,” said Jeffrey Shaw, whose bayfront home straddles Cedar Creek in Elmwood Township. “I think the DEQ has done the best they could given the situation.”

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Dioxin contamination in Michigan's Saginaw river may be highest ever recorded

November 23, 2007 - A top government scientist says a toxic ''hot spot'' found in the Saginaw River near Wickes Park in Saginaw could represent the highest level of dioxin contamination ever recorded in the nation's river and lake systems.

As Midland's Dow Chemical Co. prepares to clean up the site next week, officials continue to debate the level of danger it represents.

''There may be more surprises out there,'' said Milton Clark, senior health and science adviser at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Chicago branch. ''I'd be surprised if there's not more surprises out there.''

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Michigan Department of Environmental Quality warns that funds for environmental cleanup will run out by end of next year

November 26, 2007 - What will happen if the state's environmental cleanup funds run out?

Will contaminated brownfield properties -- like the abandoned Performance Paper site near the Edison neighborhood -- not be cleaned up?

Will protection of one of Kalamazoo's water wells from gasoline contamination from a leaking underground storage tank -- work that was suspended once because of a lack of money -- once again be halted?

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality warns that by the end of next year, two bonds that voters approved for environmental cleanup will have run out of money.

Should Michigan residents and their elected representatives allow this to happen?

Among the basic duties of government, in addition to education and public safety, is protecting citizens' health. It does this by providing health care for those in poverty, mandating vaccinations, inspecting restaurants and food processors -- and by keeping the environment clean.

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Discovery of high levels of dioxin in Michigan river have local residents worried that outdoor activities put them at risk

November 23, 2007 - The chemical, dumped into the Tittabawassee River by Dow Chemical Co. a century ago, had been discovered in other parts of the streams but never in this quantity, a federal agency said.

Not even close.

Larson worries about the health of his four daughters as he wonders whether this is the price Michigan residents pay for the state's industrial past.

"My daughters were raised out there," said the autoworker, 50, who lives 300 yards from the latest hot spot. "I'm worried for their children."

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Contaminated soil under condos causing problems in Michigan

November 20, 2007 -State health investigators say they need more information before they can predict if contamination could be putting people living in a South Haven condo complex at risk.

The study focused on the Belgravia site, now home to factory condominiums. The former home of Hamlin-Overton, the two-acre site is contaminated with trichlroethylene, or TCE, a solvent used in metal plating.

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Brown-outs latest in long line of problems for landfill's neighbors in Michigan

October 18, 2007 - First it was noisy garbage trucks at all hours of the day and night.

Then it was the news that contaminants were leaking from old underground storage cells.

Now Richfield Landfill's neighbors say they have to worry about their household appliances, too.

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Michigan township decides to limit the amount of water it will give residents who's wells are contaminted by local landfill

September 11, 2007 - After listening to nearly three-and-half-hours of passionate comments, the Cedar Creek Township Board passed an ordinance that could limit how much water residents that are affected by contamination will get for free.

The board unanimously passed the ordinance that would start charging residents a fee after using 95 gallons of water per day per person living in the household. The ordinance allows Wexford County to move forward with remediation plans with the state. But the move came under the threat of a lawsuit.

Jeffery Jocks, an attorney with Olson, Bzdok and Howard of Traverse City, said he would need to weigh the options before filing an unconstitutional taking of property lawsuit against the township. Jocks, who represents residents suing the county because of contamination of groundwater from the county landfill, said his firm sent a notice to the township board that it may sue if the board passed the ordinance at its meeting.

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Lead, arsenic, mercury and other poisons are more widespread than previously thought in neighborhood park

August 9, 2007 - Lead, arsenic, mercury and other poisons are more widespread, contaminate the surrounding groundwater and require a more massive cleanup than first thought in a Westland park where children played for years, the state acknowledged Wednesday.

Central City Park has been closed since Nov. 3, days after the Free Press began asking questions about contamination at the park that city, state and county officials had known about for years but never disclosed to residents.

The latest results show high levels of arsenic, lead, polychlorinated biphenyls, mercury and methane. High levels of lead were found in two-thirds of the samples, which were taken from across the entire park, said Bob McCann, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Quality.

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80 Michigan families impacted by ground and water contamination from nearby landfill

June 15, 2007 - Drinking water out of a five-gallon jug has become a way of life for Peggy Richardson.

That’s been the case for the Town of Pines resident for the past three years, as she and around 80 other town residents await the day when they’ll be hooked up to city water.

Richardson, 55, said she hopes that day comes soon, as she’s tired of washing her fruits and vegetables with the jugs of water that arrive at her home every two weeks.

However, what she heard at a meeting Thursday, in which residents were updated on the testing of groundwater and soil for contaminants from a nearby coal ash landfill, wasn’t cause for much optimism.

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Bucolic looks hide threats in Michigan

May 29, 2007 - FOREST TWP. - The dirt road winds past wide green lawns where tire swings dangle from trees. Up on a hill, a woman in a straw sombrero whacks weeds while a large black dog lounges in the sun.

But tucked behind the lilac bushes, plastic well-head pipes poke up like daisies in the fields - the only visible clue that something here is deeply, darkly wrong.

It's been 24 years since the old Forest Waste Disposal landfill was deemed a Superfund site - among the nation's worst toxic waste sites targeted for cleanup by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

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Buried Tanks a Leaky Danger in Michigan

April 24, 2007 - Fuels contaminate state's soil; 9,100 sites need cleanup
The water that flows from the well at the Dimitrov family home in Oakland County is hard with iron and tastes lousy.

So the site of the former Bi-Rite gas station a few yards away, where underground gasoline tanks once leaked, is just one more reason to avoid it.

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Kalamazoo Residents Protest PCB Dump

April 18, 2007 - "Our position continues to be no more waste dumped in this community," said Kalmazoo City Commissioner Dan Cooney, "and we want the toxic waste that is in there now out of this community."

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Concerned Citizens Put Up a Billboard

A billboard erected on M-46 is designed to drive home a demand to remove contamination buried at the 54-acre Velsicol Chemical site in St. Louis.

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