Contaminated Soil and Waste Management Issues

Contaminated soils are both a health and an economic problem. Many are brownfields that deter development. Developers shun contaminated areas because state governments, including the Environmental Protection Agency, can hold new owners responsible for cleaning up existing pollution. In older cities, where these sites are most common, the dead spaces are conspicuous symbols of lost jobs and shrinking tax revenues.[1]

A very common and hazardous contaminant is lead. Childhood lead poisoning is a such big concern that the act governing construction of house has its TITLE 42, CHAPTER 63A, Sec. 4851b calling for measures “ To ensure that the existence of lead-based paint hazards is taken into account in the development of Government housing policies and in the sale, rental, and renovation of homes and apartments; the removal of lead-based paint and lead-contaminated dust, the permanent containment or encapsulation of lead-based paint, the replacement of lead-painted surfaces or fixtures, and the removal or covering of lead contaminated soil.”[2]

Concerns

The United Church of Christ Commission on Racial Justice (CRJ) went further with the contamination issues publishing a report "Toxic Wastes and Race in the US - A National Report on the Racial and Socioeconomic Characteristics of Communities with Hazardous Waste Sites.” Where it claimed that toxic facilities were sited in communities with higher percentages of poor, elderly, young and minority and it coined it "environmental racism.”[3] The EPA, however, published a report refuting these claims.

MDEQ is responsible for monitoring issuing permits and to people who want to dispose off waste.[4] Many reports however have shown that the role of MDEQ has not been fully utilized. In the Spring of 2001, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality reported that the Red Cedar River, and stretches of the Grand River, exceeded state pollution standards, raising concerns about pollution hazards among state and local environmental and labor organizations. An alliance of environmental and labor organizations published a report showing that the Red Cedar River and its surrounding soils were contaminated with chemicals from a closed factory site in Fowlerville, MI. owned by Johnson Controls Inc (JCI). The report stated that “wastes from the Johnson Controls Inc. (JCI) site in Fowlerville, Michigan have contaminated soil and ground water at the plant and sediment in the Red Cedar River…No remedy has been selected, let alone implemented. We don’t know the full extent of ground water contamination, and there are no clear, identifiable goals for cleaning up the river sediment.” In another report it was found out that dioxin levels were 80 times state cleanup standards near parks and residential areas in a floodplain south of the City of Saginaw, but state DEQ Director Russell Harding blocked further testing and suppressed a state health assessment that the groups believe calls for aggressive state action to deal with the threat. Harding also overrode DEQ staff and ordered them to weaken the state’s cleanup standard for dioxins in new rules the agency is promulgating. Harding has also being accused of protecting the Tilden Mine of Ishpeming[5] form cleaning the contamination it has caused. These cases give rise to doubts about the capabilities of the MDEQ to protect Michigan residents from contamination. Another area of concern has been the removal of the law that was based on the principle of “polluters pay” and its replacement with Clean Michigan Initiative, which shifted the cleaning up of contamination from the polluters to the taxpayers.[6]

The Healthy Schools legislation is a positive move towards the protection of children against contaminants in soils. This legislation prohibits the construction of new schools buildings on contaminated and polluted land in Michigan and requires the cleaning up of contaminated property before a school building is expanded. The Healthy Schools legislation also calls for existing schools those under construction or already built on contaminated property to meet current standards for residential use, as the legislation before the passing of this bill was “too lenient” on regulating contaminated school sites, and there were no rules requiring monitoring of sites. The bill came into being after an incident where Beard Elementary School's construction was already underway and it was discovered that the school was being built on contaminated property that formerly housed several industrial businesses, tests showed the soil was contaminated with lead, PCBs, petroleum products and arsenic. [7]

Reference:

1. Ecology Center

http://www.ecocenter.org/releases/20020131dow.shtml

2. NEWS FOCUS

http://www.metrotimes.com/johnengler/19_01grn3.html

3. House of Democrats http://www.housedems.com/preview.cfm?repID=15&articleID=1603