Elected officials call for change over transporting, storing hazardous waste in Michigan

DETROIT — A host of politicians, including U.S. Reps. Debbie Dingell and Rashida Tlaib, are vowing to pursue legislative change so that state officials and local communities are notified when hazardous waste is transported and stored in the state.

The demands were made during a Wayne County Commission committee meeting on Tuesday, one week after news broke that a hazardous waste treatment and disposal facility in Van Buren Township will accept low-level radioactive soil and concrete from a Manhattan Project cleanup site in western New York, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons.

The plan has drawn fierce opposition from Wayne County government leaders who are calling for more transparency. On Tuesday afternoon, the Wayne County Commission discussing the plan during a Committee of the Whole meeting that drew a range of politicians and more than 150 people on Zoom.

Dingell, a Dearborn Democrat, and Tlaib, a Detroit Democrat, called for legislative action. So did state Rep. Reggie Miller. The county commission used the Tuesday session as the beginning of discussion for potential county regulation.

"When you say nuclear waste, that's the mother of all not-in-my-backyard," issue, said County Commissioner Tim Killeen, D-Detroit.

At the commission meeting, representatives from the city of Belleville and Romulus said their city councils passed resolutions this week calling for more transparency in the process.

“Transferring nuclear waste poses a serious threat to residents in the area and throughout our county and we want to make sure their voices are heard,” Commission Chair Alisha Bell said in an earlier statement. “We are the nation’s 19th most-populated county and we sit alongside the world’s largest fresh water supply. Surely, there are other, less-populated and less-risky places where this waste can be stored."

Next week, a larger public forum will be held place in Belleville. A "Hazardous Waste Town Hall" is scheduled for Sept. 4 that will be hosted by Dingell and Wayne County Executive Warren Evans.

Representatives from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, along with other state and local officials will be on hand to address concerns regarding the transport and storage of hazardous waste at the Wayne Disposal facility in Van Buren Township.

The planned shipment has not violated any procedures or laws. EGLE approved the shipment, according to U.S. Army Corps officials. Shipments aren't required to be approved by states under the federal hazardous waste management law, but the Army Corps seeks it anyway, officials said.

The disposal complies with state environmental laws and does not present a significant risk to the public or the environment, an EGLE spokesperson told The News earlier. The department said it reviewed laboratory analyses and the Army Corps' work plan before approving the shipment.

EGLE was notified, but clearly many more need to be made aware, Dingell said.

"There are people that deal with this on such a day-to-day basis that they don't have a political filter, or, understand that people in communities are going to be very upset and are very worried," she said.

Wayne Disposal Inc. in Van Buren Township is the closest licensed disposal facility to the Niagara Falls Storage Site that is capable of taking the material, according to U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials.

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