The evidentiary hearing in a lawsuit filed by several local communities seeking to prevent the disposal of nuclear waste in the area has been rescheduled for Oct. 9.
Canton Township, Van Buren Township, the City of Romulus, and the City of Belleville were awarded a Temporary Restraining Order earlier this month, stopping Wayne Disposal, Inc. from accepting scheduled shipments of radioactive World War II era nuclear waste at the Wayne Disposal hazardous waste landfill in Van Buren Township.
The planned shipment of 8,400 tons of radioactive waste material from Project Manhattan in New York to the Van Buren Township landfill was temporarily blocked by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Kevin Cox last week in response to an injunction filed by attorneys representing the communities.
“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.
“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,” Graham Hudak said in a prepared statement. She said the landfill has been cited multiple times for safety violations, according to media reports, and has had leaks and fires. Graham-Hudak said reports claim that Wayne Disposal has been cited for at least 15 violations by state and federal regulators in the past decade and fined for than $471,000. “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.
The hazardous material which contains elevated radioactivity was to be shipped from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers site in Lewiston, New York where the waste had been stored. The waste matter is from uranium extraction during the development of atomic bombs from 1944 until 1952. 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 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.
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.”
