No one comes to object to ban of wells in RACER Trust area

Nobody came to a public information session on May 18 to object to a proposed Van Buren Township ordinance that would ban water wells around RACER Trust property in the northwestern part of the township at Ecorse Road and Michigan Avenue.
Those from RACER, which stands for Revitalizing Auto Communities Environmental Response Trust, thought it was a good sign that nobody objected. They had knocked on doors to present flyers announcing the meeting at the mobile home park area adjoining the RACER property and sent notices by mail to General Motors and Ford Motor Company which own adjoining sites.
They said nobody was home in the mobile home park and they were probably at work. Only a small area of the park is involved in the proposed ban.
While waiting for someone to show up at the public session, Thomas E. Peters, consultant from the Mannik Smith Group, spoke on behalf of the project and showed his power point presentation giving details.
He said the 68-acre site was an agricultural site in the 1940s and in the late 1960s a landfill was started there for the city of Detroit. He said car parts were dumped there along with other waste. Later GM got involved and in 2011 it became a part of the RACER project.
It has been vacant since then with vegetation.
Peters said the auto parts brought iron to the site and that iron in the water can bring gastic distress, if ingested. He said there is not a great deal of concern for human health exposure. The biggest concern is the ecology of the site.
He said there was an initial site assessment in 2002-3 and additional soil and groundwater assessments in 2011-17.
Peters said the site has 10-15’ of sand, 70-80’ of thick clay, a 10’ layer, and then shale bedrock.
He said more than 30 test wells have been on the site since 2015 and the testing will continue for the foreseeable future.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency oversees the site and there is a restrictive covenant that it will be maintained as non-residential and if soil leaves the site it will have proper disposal. The soil cover and vegetation will be maintained or replaced.
They did an ecological solution for the 6.5 acre portion in the middle of the site where soil was added. He said the site is 68 acres total and 40 acres of that was disturbed.
The groundwater remedy is for the restrictive covenant to keep wells off the site and restrict wells from the surrounding area.
Peters said there are six or eight different property owners adjoining the RACER site, from Denton to the Washtenaw county line, including a few homes in the mobile home park, with all units hooked up to township water. There is another RACER site it adjoins.
There are no water wells at all in the targeted area, Peters said.
RACER has asked the township to enact an ordinance to ban drinking water wells from that area, as approved by the EPA, and it is expected to be on the June 20 township board meeting agenda for the first reading.
Ron Akers, Van Buren Township director of municipal services, said that night’s meeting was set up for anyone who had any questions.
Besides Peters and Director Akers, also present at the meeting that brought no one to ask questions were Dan Power, director of building and economic development, Steven Black and Patricia Spitzley from RACER, and the Independent.