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Thursday, July 7, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com NEWS
superfund designation, we would
probably require a large amount
of community input and a full
understanding of how successful
(the) EPA has been with respect to
other dioxane sites in Michigan,
what we could hope to achieve by
obtaining
that
designation and
frankly
what
risks we’d run
by doing this.”
Scio
Township
Supervisor
Spaulding Clark
— who supports
a
superfund
designation
—
told
the
Daily
before
the
county’s
vote that whether a superfund
petition is ultimately pursued
may rest with the city of Ann
Arbor’s decision. Clark also said
he has more confidence in the
EPA than the DEQ to manage
the contamination, and that he
believes concerns about loss in
property values are unfounded
because affected properties still
have access to public water and
that the contamination has been
long-known to realtors and home
buyers.
“If both the county and the
city have no interest in making
this a superfund site, my guess is
it won’t happen,” Clark said. “I
think the reality is that Ann Arbor
Township and Scio Township are
awaiting a decision by Ann Arbor
Township and the county as to
whether they want to get into
this.”
Although the DEQ and Pall
Corporation — which acquired
Gelman — have maintained a
network
of
monitoring
wells to track
the
plume
since
1992,
Washtenaw
County
locals
have
long
been
critical
of the state’s
response,
and the Flint
water
crisis
re-energized
public
attention in January.
In March, the DEQ promised
to revise groundwater safety
standards for 1,4-dioxane to
be in line with EPA cancer risk
guidelines, which would grant
the Michigan Attorney General
standing to take new legal
action against Pall Corporation
for more thorough cleanup and
remediation
activities.
In
a
June interview, Robert Wagner,
chief of the DEQ Remediation
Division, told the Daily the
new regulations are on track
to be submitted to the state
legislature for approval in its
9-month timeframe.
Nonetheless,
a
persistent
dissatisfaction with the DEQ’s
bureaucracy was visible in the
county
commission’s
meeting,
particularly with Commissioner
Yousef Rabhi (D).
“We’re
dealing
with
an
organization that has ignored
us for too long … that has set
timelines and then broken their
timelines, and I personally have
no interest in continuing to be
fooled by an organization that
isn’t being held true to its own
standards,” Rabhi said at the
County Commission session. “I
don’t believe it is the fault of the
staff on the ground … but the DEQ
is fundamentally flawed in its
structure; the DEQ does not serve
the people of Michigan, it serves
the interests of the polluters and
the corporate interests.”
The
County
Commision’s
Wednesday resolution also called
for Governor Rick Snyder (R)
to expedite the passage of the
new water standards by the state
legislature.
State Rep. Jeff Irwin (D–Ann
Arbor),
who
represents
most
of Washtenaw County, told the
Daily in late June that, despite
his past frustrations, he has been
encouraged by the DEQ’s latest
efforts and believes a rush to
petition for EPA intervention
would undermine this progress.
However, Irwin also noted he
does not have a firm position on
superfund designation.
“I am as frustrated as anybody
else about how the cleanup has
been administered around the
Gelman site, and I think the DEQ
is part of that frustration,” Irwin
said. “But I feel as though they’ve
finally started to move in the right
direction for this cleanup, and
now that they’ve been working
with us as partners, it might be a
bad time to shift to a new partner.
(The EPA) might be better, the
EPA might take the situation more
seriously, but they also might not,
and they may also take a long time
getting to the point that the DEQ
has now been brought to.”
GROUNDWATER
From Page 1
“The question of
whether or not to
seek superfund
status is a
complicated one”
1-250 ppb
250-1,000 ppb
1,000-2,000 ppb
2,000+ ppb
Ann Arbor Dioxide
Plume Map
Source: Scio Residents for Safe Water