The planned shipment of 8,400 tons of radioactive waste material from Project Manhattan in New York to a Van Buren Township landfill has been temporarily blocked by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Kevin Cox.
The shipments, originally planned to begin this month, were halted by Cox in response to a lawsuit filed by the cities of Belleville and Romulus along with Van Buren and Canton townships. “We are very pleased that the judge saw merit in our case for the residents surrounding this waste facility,” said Canton Township Supervisor Anne Marie Graham-Hudak.
She said Canton officials took immediate action when the plans to truck the radioactive waste were first revealed in the media.
“The day that the Free Press story broke on New York’s radioactive waste being dumped in Michigan, we took immediate action. Our team visited the site, surveyed the surrounding area and drafted a resolution,” Graham-Hudak said.
“Wayne Disposal is just three miles south of Canton, and located in the Huron River Watershed, close to our rivers, lakes, streams and groundwater. It sits next to two schools and residential neighborhoods immediately to the east and south. According to EGLE, (Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy) the harmful chemicals PFAS have been detected at Wayne Disposal. And, according to the Detroit Free Press, this dump has a long history of violations, leaks and fires. Wayne Disposal has been cited for at least 15 violations by state and federal regulators in the past decade and fined more than $471,000.”
Graham-Hudak continued. “Exposure to radioactive waste damages organs, causes birth defects and leads to cancer. In large doses, as with a radioactive spill or accident, it causes vomiting, skin burns, hair loss and even death. In other words, it will take just one leak or fire to cause permanent and irreversible injury to the health and welfare of Canton residents and the surrounding communities,” she said in a prepared statement.
The hazardous material which contains elevated radioactivity were to be shipped from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers site in Lewiston, New York where they had been stored. The storage site accepted waste from uranium extraction from the development of atomic bombs from 1944 until 1952. The waste was to be shipped to Wayne Disposal in Van Buren, one of the largest hazardous waste landfills in the county. Original plans scheduled about 6,000 cubic yards of contaminated yards of soil and concrete in about 25 semitruck shipments through January 2025.
State Rep. Reggie Miller (D-Van Buren Township introduced state legislation last week to prevent disposal or trucking of hazardous, radioactive waste through local communities. She said this was a health and safety issue, not one of politics.
“I’m pleased to hear about the temporary injunction to block these shipments, but make no mistake — this is one small victory in a much bigger fight, and I will not rest until there is a permanent solution. The people of Wayne County have spoken loud and clear: Our hometown will not be the dumping ground for toxic, radioactive waste, and I stand with them 100 percent, be they Democrat, Republican or Independent,” she said in a prepared statement.
Plans to transport the waste to Wayne Disposal Inc. site were only revealed to state and county officials on Aug. 12, prompting protests and complaints from area residents.
The court filing followed a contentious public meeting attended by U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, Miller and several local officials. Representatives from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Department of Transportation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and representatives from Wayne Disposal owner Republic Services attempted to explain the safety and legality of the waste transport to the local site.
Steve Pylypiak, chief of special projects for the Buffalo District of the Army Corps of Engineers assured the crowd that federal inspections of the Van Buren site as of 2022 found that it met all mandated safety protocols, despite public claims of several fires at the site. He said the trucking contractors would be required to follow federal safety requirements for transporting the waste through local communities and maintained that accidents involving trucks during transport of waste material were “rare.”
Graham-Hudak was critical of the failure of the company to notify local authorities of the pending disposal. She said public hearings took place in New York where the exact routes for hauling the waste through those communities were detailed.
“Our residents are just as important as those in New York” she said.
The judge ordered Wayne Disposal attorneys to file a written response to the complaint and scheduled a hearing on the issue for today.
