Source: MIRS.news, Published 02/12/2024) An electroplating chemical spill in Warren’s Bear Creek drain and the spotting of a “mysterious corrosive ooze” seeping out of the ground of a former steel facility in Riverview were propped up as examples by environmentalists and local officials as reasons for new polluter pay laws in Michigan.
In Warren, Councilmember Hal Newnan called the “preventable” leaking of 580,000 gallons of toxic wastewater into Warren's Bear Creek as something that should be “an alarm at the highest levels.”
Overall, more than 24,000 contaminated sites need attention in Michigan and many are not being cleaned up quickly, said Grosse Ile Township Trustee Kyle de Beausset. Ooze has bubbled up near Riverview Trenton Railroad’s recent construction on the northern portion of the former McLouth site for nine months. deBeausset fingered the Maroun family as being responsible, but nobody has taken responsibility.
“The system is rigged for polluters and we need better laws to both encourage cleanup and hold polluters accountable when they hurt our communities like this,” he said. “Thankfully, our local state lawmakers are champions of better polluter pay laws, and I’m hopeful they’ll lead our state government to act quickly and better protect communities like ours from pollution.”
McLouth Waterfront Alliance’s Ryan Stewart, Michigan Sierra Club’s Christy McGilliray and the Michigan League of Conservation Voter’s Bentley Johnson were the featured speakers at the Trenton event.
The manufacturing industry has opposed these types of bills because they would require a costly, extensive cleanup to a level of mediation may that may not be necessary for the project being considered. For example, if a developer wants to build a solar farm on a brownfield site, “polluter pay laws” would require state and new developers to clean up the property as if a neighborhood was being placed there.
A Michigan Manufacturing Association (MMA) official spotlighted a scenario such as this, in which the current Part 201 program had the developer paying $250,000 to clean up a site well enough to put electricity-generated solar panels on it. Environmentalists are asking for a standard that would drive up costs to $1.25 million.
If the bills the environmentalists are advocating are SB 605, SB 606, SB 607, SB 608, SB 609, SB 610 and SB 611, Caroline Liethen, MMA's director of environmental and regulatory policy, said orphan sites like the former McLouth site and the Bear Creek situation don't apply, anyway.
The fact is, a person found responsible for polluting a property in Michigan is already required to pay for cleanup. The issue is abandoned orphaned sites where state money is needed for cleanup because the responsible party is long gone and can't be tracked down, she said.
“Polluter pay is a bit of a misnomer,” she said. “In fact, those bills could have a chilling effect on brownfield redevelopment” because developers may pull out due to cost, causing abandoned, polluted property to sit longer.
