Standing room only at town hall on radioactive waste

There was standing room only at the three-hour-long, town-hall meeting held Sept. 4 at Wayne County Community College to discuss the radioactive waste coming from New York for disposal at the hazardous waste landfill on the North I-94 Service Drive in Van Buren Township.
The town hall was called by U.S. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell and the podium had politicians on one end and at the other end officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Michigan EGLE (Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy), Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Transportation, and Republic Waste.
The crowd was feisty at the beginning and as the evening wore on, crowd members got surlier. They called out slurs, such as, “You don’t know sh-t,” booed politicians, and told officials to put the radioactive waste in their backyards.
After lengthy presentations by politicians and officials, which took more than an hour and 15 minutes, members of the public were allowed to speak for as long as they liked, and they lined up in an orderly manner down the main aisle. At the meeting’s two-hour mark, speakers were cut back to being able to speak just one minute each. This, too, brought cries from the crowd. They went on for another hour.
Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said that two years ago they met at WCCC about waste and, “We don’t need to meet here every two years when somebody breaks a story,” he said.
“The question then was why didn’t we know?” he recalled, adding, “We were told we would know and we didn’t.” He said two years ago the county was told it would be informed of what was coming to the hazardous landfill.
Evans said the waste that is coming is not rated extremely high and could be shared with other landfills.
He referred to a story from The Detroit Free Press from two years ago and from this summer’s Free Press story that both stirred up public anger.
Congresswoman Dingell said she learned from The Free Press what was coming and then called the county and they learned from that newspaper as well. That’s not the way it was supposed to be, she said.
Then she said she always calls on U.S. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib for issues like these.
Dingell said the site began as a landfill in 1954 or 1959 and in 1979 was certified for hazardous waste. In 2013, radioactive waste was permitted. She said Republic now owns the site, which is regulated by EGLE and EPA.
Tlaib said, “We just want to be safe” and US Ecology was fined $1 million for violations in their South Detroit site which is now owned by Republic. She said in August that Republic’s Wayne Disposal had a violation but she doesn’t know what it was for.
State Rep. Reggie Miller, D-Van Buren Township, said she wants to shut down Wayne Disposal. She said she and Sen. Darrin Camilleri, D-Trenton, are working on a bill to raise dumping fees in the state from the current 35 cents a ton to more like those states that charge $58 a ton.
Sen. Camilleri said the bill was ready but they couldn’t get support to get it passed so it will be presented in November.
Members of the Wayne County Commission and local mayors and township supervisors stood to be recognized but did not speak.
A Lieutenant/Colonel of the Army Corps of Engineers explained how FUSRAP (Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program) works and said there were no FUSRAP accidents in transporting hazardous materials so far.
Someone in the audience called out, “You say how safe it is. Put it in your backyard!”
Liz Browne, director of the Materials Management Division at EGLE, said the Supreme Court declared waste was a commodity and Michigan cannot ban out-of-state waste. She said there are no requirements for notifying anyone, but they will notify the appropriate person at Wayne County moving forward.
Browne said radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer and her department deals with radon, too.
She said the landfill is up for license renewal and in November EGLE will have a hearing session and then have the formal hearing in the spring. She said those who live within a certain distance from the landfill will get a notice in the mail.
The director of solid and hazardous waste for Region 5 of the EPA, based in Chicago, said the states run most of the waste program, although the EPA oversees it.
A representative of the U.S. Department of Transportation said accidents are rare as hazardous waste is moved across the country, which brought loud hoots from the audience.
First speaker from the audience at the microphone was Heather Smiley of Riverview, who is the Republican candidate for Congress opposing Dingell in November. She listed things that she said were wrong and Dingell got a little testy.
The next speaker noted that radioactive water and soil was coming to the township landfill and she wanted to know where they put the water. She was told it was treated and then released into the county drainage system. The official later said people in this area do not drink ground water and members of the audience yelled out, “Lies, lies.”
The third speaker said she lives three miles from the site and was a military brat and now is a wife and mother. She told stories of a family that lives seven miles from the landfill who had multiple members die of cancer. She asked for the lifespan of the storage tanks and was told they do not use storage tanks.
Chris Donley, who said he is on the Belleville Downtown Development Authority and chairs its marketing committee, said the landfill is not in Belleville, as some reporters have said, but is in Van Buren Township. He said the erroneous reports set the DDA back about 20 years in its marketing and, “Thank you for that!”
He said there were nine fires in nine years at the landfill, with one going on for days. He said Van Buren Fire Fighters had to help after the landfill ran out of foam. He said the fire fighters didn’t know what to do there.
“When it comes to radioactive materials, there are no small accidents,” Donley said.
Dale Binecki, a Republican who is running to unseat Democrat Reggie Miller as state representative in the November election, said that evening’s event was for the politicians and it was “la, la, la, la, la,” the same old song. He said people do not trust those in office.
He accused Rep. Miller of voting to take wind and solar zoning decisions away from municipalities after she got 2,000 emails against the legislation. He said she said she wouldn’t vote for it and then she did.
Miller, who had an aisle seat next to the public microphone started talking loudly over him and then jumped up from her seat and confronted him, waving in his face, and trying to keep him from speaking.
Congresswoman Tlaib called for order and asked them to look at the long line behind them of people waiting to speak.
State Rep. Jim DeSana, R-Ash Township, said the swamp is running things and there is corporate money going to politicians. He said he just pulled one report, but he said Republic Services donated money to several politicians, including $2,500 to Wayne County Executive Evans and $500 to Rep. Miller.
Rep. Miller called out, interrupting him and asking who he said gave her money and then denied knowing anything about it, shaking her head. Evans took the microphone, said he had been in office for ten years, and accused Rep. DeSana of going sideways instead of ahead.
Mike Long of Van Buren Township said when he worked for Van Buren Township in the 1970s, he filed suit against the landfill and got an injunction, but the township was not successful in stopping them.
Long said he has talked to Supervisor Kevin McNamara and suggested monitors be added at the middle school and community center to catch anything toxic in the air or water.
He also said the Department of Defense has adopted a new procedure to take blood samples and DNR from amphibians and reptiles because that’s who absorb the toxins first. He suggested the Army Corps of Engineers add that kind of test as the first testing before they have to look at people.
Other topics of speakers were property values, this being a target area for a bomb that could hit two airports and the landfill, and transparency.
The speakers went on and as the meeting continued members of the audience left and there were lots of seats for those who had been standing.
Wayne County Executive Evans ended the session, saying that the officials are following the laws in place and, “I don’t like toxic materials in Wayne County.” He said the worst health among residents of the state is in Wayne County.
Evans asked officials to let the police and fire departments know when toxic materials are being transported in. He asked the audience to not just go home at the end of the meeting, but to support legislation that will help solve the problem.
Van Buren Township recorded the meeting and it is available on its YouTube channel.