Public comment tells of truck tires dripping on way to landfill

Although the people who came to the public hearing on proposed changes to the Wayne Disposal Landfill were just flat out against having a toxic landfill in Michigan, at the very end of the comments came a blockbuster.
Four local residents reported seeing the trucks that get off the I-94 freeway at Rawsonville Road to head for the landfill on the North I-94 Service Drive are dripping and leaking.
Judy Petras of Belleville said, “The trouble I see is in the transportation. The trucks are leaking … going through, driving through Van Buren Township and Canton. I have personally seen the leaking trucks.”
Al Taylor of the MDEQ said the officials are presenting what they have used to make their decisions.
“We may have missed something,” he said, explaining why the public hearing is held.
Michelle Brow of Van Buren Township said nothing is perfect and the landfill will leak.
“We’ve been behind trucks with my five-year-old twins and the trucks are dripping,” she said. “It shouldn’t take a year to know it’s leaking,” she added, referring to the inspections.
“We have regular monitoring,” Taylor said. “If you do see something leaking out of a truck going into Wayne Disposal, call us. We can’t know if you don’t tell me.”
Brow said she would take a picture of the license plate and send it to him next time she sees it.
Brow said they are bringing in toxic waste from all over the U.S. and Canada. She said there is a cancer risk and a developmental issue for children for a one-mile radius from the landfill.
“Is quarterly the best we can do?” Brow asked of the inspections.
Taylor said there is a MDEQ employee at the site full time and they have not been made aware of any dripping or leaking problems.
A man identifying himself as Patrick, who works for Wayne County, said he was not aware the EPA would be a part of this public hearing. He thought it was just MDEQ. He asked if the new liner was as protective or better than the old liner.
Lisa Graczyk of the EPA said the new liner is “the gold standard” and has resistance to “unsettling earth.”
He asked Dr. Soong if the new liner is more cost-effective for the landfill and if there will be increased disposability with three feet less in liner.
Dr. Soong said he didn’t know about the cost difference, but while three feet of space is freed up, they are not getting more capacity.
Several of those attending and speaking were part of a coalition against US Ecology and its Detroit location.
Paul Von Oeyen, M.D., retired from treating high-risk pregnancies, asked why Michigan has to accept this hazardous waste since the state is surrounded by water and the toxins will leak into the water.
Taylor said Wayne Disposal is where it is because Michigan was the auto manufacturing capital of the work and it generated a lot of waste. Although PCBs are no longer manufactured, PCBs are still in the environment, he said.
Dr. Von Oeyen asked if PCBs are in the leachate and Taylor said they were and have to be removed by an extensive polishing system. A carbon filtration is used to remove the PCBs so the water can be released.
A man asked about the Luckey site in Ohio that is bringing radioactive waste to Wayne Disposal. He was told that a maximum of 500 parts per million of radioactive substance could go to a regular local landfill and the waste from Luckey is just 50 ppm. He said the Army Corps of Engineers has a policy and this has to go to a hazardous waste landfill.
“There are no really safe levels of radiation,” said Dr. Von Oeyen. “There’s still some risk. Why move it? Why not encase it in cement like Chernobyl?”
“We’re going to move to Livingston County,” said Brow, the mother of twins.
A man asked who was responsible for this facility if the company fails and Taylor told him all hazardous waste facilities have to maintain financial assurance, which is money the DEQ can access to maintain the site or close it.
Taylor said they need quite a bit of money to maintain a landfill and it depends on how long there will be leachate.
Taylor said in the 1970s, landfills were basically holes in the ground and many of the landfills from the ’70s are being dealt with as a state or nation.
During a break Taylor talked to the people who had reported seeing trucks dripping sludge going into the landfill. He said they can increase their surveillance of the trucks and they haven’t experienced this in the past.
“We’ve got a guy who walks around that landfill all day,” Taylor said. “He’s old and crabby, a retired engineer, so he would say something. We have to figure out how to replace him when he leaves.”
At the formal public hearing at the end of the evening’s session, several said they didn’t know about this meeting until the day before. They said the MDEQ and EPA have to do better at advising the public.
Taylor said they put the notice in the local paper, the Independent, as required. and sent out a press release the day before the meeting. (He said after the meeting that the best notification he has seen that brings the most people is a lighted sign in front of a facility that says Public Hearing Tonight.)
Van Buren Township Trustee Kevin Martin said they should expand their notification policy. He said the Township of Ypsilanti, directly to the west of the site, should have been informed. He said when there was a hearing for Waste Management on VBT’s east border, there were 14,000 cards sent out to residents. He said they have to go beyond what is required.
Michael Shane, a retired engineer, said the representatives of EPA and MDEQ all have the best intentions, but things always fail.
“I don’t want this place to be the trash heap for this country,” he said. “We should look for people to clean up their own poop … We have to pay the consequences for the business. … I just don’t have the confidence in you fixing things when they break.”
Brow said her parents read the Independent and showed her the notice. She said she sent emails to Rafael Gonzalez and Lisa Graczyk and got no response.
“My neighbors don’t know what’s going on,” Brow said. “It’s disturbing to me that Canada is sending its waste. It’s coming from all over. I can’t explain PCBs to my twins. I think each country should take care of its own waste.
“PCBs are never going to come out of the water, like Prozac never comes out of the water. I oppose it,” she said.
A woman from the Detroit coalition against U.S. Ecology, a cancer survivor, said she puts a glass of water on her nightstand so she can get a drink during the night and when she reaches for it, it smells like chemicals.
“We are destroying our own quality of life,” she said.