EGLE Oks Wayne Disposal hazardous waste renewal, landfill expansion

• The Michigan Division of Setting, Nice Lakes and Power approves a brand new hazardous waste disposal working allow for the controversial Wayne Disposal Inc. facility in Van Buren Township.
• The brand new allow permits the hazardous waste landfill to increase its capability by greater than 24% and add storage areas for waste that has not but been handled.

The Michigan Division of Setting, Nice Lakes and Power is making ready to approve a renewed hazardous waste administration allow for Wayne Disposal Inc.’s controversial hazardous waste landfill. on Interstate 94 in Van Buren Township in Wayne County – together with an growth of greater than 24% of the landfill’s capability and a brand new storage space for untreated hazardous waste.

EGLE’s resolution comes after vocal protests from the encompassing neighborhood, together with state, provincial and native authorities officers and space residents who organized informational conferences to specific their opposition to the hazardous waste facility’s continued operations in a populated space close to Belleville Lake.

The landfill is owned by Phoenix-based waste administration large Republic Providers.

“I’m extraordinarily disillusioned in EGLE’s resolution to disregard the general public issues and important resident advocacy which have made it abundantly clear: the folks of Wayne County are not looking for this growth,” stated State Rep. Reggie Miller, D-Van Buren Township.

EGLE’s resolution impacts the well being and security of 350,000 folks inside a 10-mile radius of Wayne Disposal Inc., Miller stated.

“Residents are nicely conscious of the historical past of violations dedicated by WDI’s guardian firm, Republic Providers, which utilized for the growth allow,” she stated. “They’ve additionally been very vocal and clear about their issues in regards to the web site’s acceptance of radioactive waste, PCBs and PFAS chemical substances.

“Individuals’s well being ought to by no means come second to company greed. However that is precisely what this allow tells the households of Wayne County.”

EGLE’s Supplies Administration Division workers beneficial issuance of the draft allow primarily based on plenty of conclusions, together with that “the ability doesn’t presently pose a hazard to public well being or the surroundings … primarily based on environmental monitoring of air, groundwater, soil and sediments carried out by (Wayne Disposal Inc.) and monitored by EGLE, and on compliance inspections carried out by EGLE personnel.”

Operation of the ability complies with federal and state hazardous waste administration legal guidelines, EGLE officers stated.

“Wayne Disposal, Inc. (WDI) has acquired the license renewal, which can enable the ability to proceed offering important waste providers to prospects in Michigan and the area,” Republic Providers spokeswoman Melissa Quillard stated in an announcement on Thursday, January 29. “We stay dedicated to accountable enterprise operations and environmental stewardship.”

The renewed license permits Wayne Disposal to extend the amount of the landfill from 22.45 million cubic meters to 27.89 million cubic meters. The request is for a vertical growth “to fill a low spot within the present landfill,” which is now permitted because of the closure of a runway on the neighboring Willow Run Airport, Quillard beforehand informed the Free Press. The vertical growth was beforehand not allowed attributable to rules concerning that runway’s flight path, she stated.

The allow additionally authorizes two new container storage areas that can enable for the storage of as much as 1,626 cubic meters of untreated hazardous waste, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) waste, or technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials, or TENORM, waste with low however elevated ranges of radioactivity. The majority container storage space would maintain as much as 46 20 cubic meter containers; whereas a non-bulk container warehouse may maintain practically 2,600 55-gallon drums or equivalents.

Van Buren Township Supervisor Kevin McNamara expressed disappointment with EGLE’s license renewal for Wayne Disposal and the method.

“I am not very proud of a allowing course of that asks for public remark, the place 250 members of the general public remark that they do not need it, citing scientific information and knowledge, and it is rejected,” he stated.

“This landfill is situated close to a physique of water that feeds the Nice Lakes. Twenty % of the world’s contemporary water is on this space. It is a densely populated space. They ignored all these issues.”

Wayne Disposal is licensed to obtain 722 several types of hazardous waste, substances deemed too doubtlessly dangerous to the general public or the surroundings to be disposed of in a traditional landfill. It’s certainly one of solely twelve landfills within the U.S. licensed to obtain PCBs, and the one such facility within the Midwest.

A Free Press investigation revealed in September 2023 discovered that Wayne Disposal diverted 1.8 million tons of waste to landfill from 2019 to June 2023; with related Michigan Disposal facility on the identical web site, requiring greater than 1.2 million tons for processing. Wastes acquired embody a few of the most harmful chemical substances identified to man: dioxins; polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs; cyanide compounds; nonstick “eternally chemical” PFAS compounds; arsenic; asbestos, and lots of extra.

Federal regulation regulates so-called “acute” hazardous wastes extra strictly than these which are merely flammable, corrosive, reactive or poisonous. Acute spills are spills that may kill, completely disable, or in any other case severely hurt folks, even with minor publicity. EPA manifest knowledge reveals that from 2019 by way of June 2023, Michigan Disposal acquired practically 500,000 tons of acute waste, whereas Wayne Disposal disposed of practically 3,700 tons of acute waste.

Extra: EPA begins eradicating hazards from former chemical plant in Detroit

The landfill pulls hazardous waste not solely from Michigan, however from surrounding states as nicely. The controversy erupted in February 2023 when Wayne Disposal accepted hazardous vinyl chloride waste from a practice derailment in East Palestine, Ohio. Protests from native, state and federal officers ultimately put strain on the U.S. Environmental Safety Company to halt the shipments and dump the waste at services outdoors Michigan.

Anger elevated once more in August 2024 after the Detroit Free Press broke the story regionally that the landfill was making ready to take away 6,000 cubic yards of soil and concrete with elevated radioactivity from the Niagara Falls Storage Web site in Lewiston, New York. The situation was concerned within the Manhattan Venture, the event of the atomic bomb throughout and simply after World Battle II. Wayne Disposal has beforehand accepted waste with elevated radioactivity from different federally managed former nuclear analysis websites.

Wayne County Circuit Decide Kevin Cox final 12 months ordered a halt to all shipments of waste with elevated radioactivity from former U.S. nuclear weapons and vitality services to Wayne Disposals. The landfill and Republic Providers are interesting the choice, and the trial is ready to start on Monday, February 2.

Chris Donley, a neighbor of Wayne Disposal and a frontrunner on the grassroots nonprofit Michigan against nuclear waste which opposes the continuation and growth of the hazardous waste dump, stated the group continues to be in search of renewal of EGLE’s license for the ability.

“It is only a continuation of the stamping course of,” he stated. “EGLE has by no means denied any request from Republic of Wayne Disposal to extend the quantity of poisonous supplies coming in, to increase their waste streams. And to now enable this poisonous facility to develop into the monster it’s at this time, in the midst of a neighborhood, is disappointing however not shocking.”

Info is out there about Wayne Disposal’s new license and its necessities on the Michigan.gov website.

Contact Keith Matheny: kmatheny@freepress.com.