POISON

For the benefit of our readers unfamiliar with the standards the State of Michigan has set for environmental contamination, we thought it would be helpful to explain why the soil that the developers of The Boardwalk (f.k.a. the Berkey & Gay furniture factory) dumped at illegal landfills in the Grand Rapids are constitutes hazardous waste and why it is dangerous to you and the environment.

What do you mean by "hazardous waste" and "contaminated soil"?

In the "Toxic Towers" articles we mean nothing less than materials that are toxic to you and the environment.  The soil of the Boardwalk project site was contaminated with two dozen hazardous substances in concentrations dangerous to human life and health.  Therefore, this contaminated soil is a hazardous waste regulated by state and federal statutes to prevent it from coming into contact with you, your family, and the environment.

To sum up, when we say "hazardous waste" or "contaminated soil", we mean poison.

What is a hazardous substance?

It is a dangerous contaminant, such as the ones found throughout the soil of the Boardwalk project site.  It is one of the hundreds of metals and chemicals that the federal government has identified (and the State of Michigan has adopted) as toxic to human life and health if present in a certain concentration.  The hazardous substances found in the soil of the Boardwalk before its redevelopment included lead, mercury, arsenic, phenanthrene, and several other metals and chemicals.

What is the importance of the concentration of a hazardous substance?

Briefly, it determines whether or not it is toxic to you.  Some substances we would normally think of as always poisonous, such as arsenic, pose no threat if its concentration is very low in materials like soil or water.  Conversely, other substances we think of as innocuous, like zinc, are in fact poisons when concentrations get too high.

Two dozen hazardous substances were found in the soil of the Boardwalk project site that were in concentrations toxic to human life and health, according to the standards set by the State of Michigan.  This is unsurprising because the old furniture factory had been built upon "urban fill" -- i.e., industrial waste -- and manufacturing operations were carried out there for over a century.

What standards did the Boardwalk soil violate?

Safe drinking water, ambient air, and direct contact standards.  This means that the soil of the Boardwalk project site was poisonous to drinking water, poisonous to the air in its immediate vicinity, and poisonous to the touch.  Therefore, the developers of The Boardwalk were obligated under state and federal law to:

[1]  Prevent the high concentrations of lead in the Boardwalk's soil from getting into our drinking water supply (i.e., the groundwater and system system flowing into the Grand River, which in turn flows into Lake Michigan);

[2] Make sure workers and visitors at the Boardwalk project site were equipped with breathing apparatuses that protected them from inhaling the poisonous phenanthrene the soil was releasing into the ambient air;

[3] Make sure workers and visitors at the Boardwalk project site were wearing protective clothing to prevent prolonged direct contact with the hazardous metals and chemicals contaminating the site's soil.

What did the Boardwalk developers do to protect us and the environment from the contaminated soil they were removing from the project site?

Nothing.  In fact, the Boardwalk developers falsely portrayed the project site's soil as uncontaminated so that they could move around the site and transport it off-site for permanent disposal without any controls to prevent hazardous exposure to the site's workers, visitors, neighbors, and the general public.

Where is the Boardwalk soil now?

We know that about 20,000 tons of it (roughly a pile the size of a nine-story building) was illegally dumped onto the grounds of the old Monroe Avenue Water Filtration Plant, a nationally registered historic landmark recently re-christened as "Clearwater Plaza".  We believe another 6,000 tons has been illegally dumped at other locations in the Grand Rapids vicinity.  The developers refused to tell authorities where these other dumpsites are.

Therefore, this hazardous waste that had once been contained at its source, The Boardwalk, has now been spread around our City.  The extent of the danger remains unknown.

Comments

[Luna]

I'm doing a paper in Government on Human Rights. So far I've found nothing to say the government is voilating a home owners Human Rights by not telling them they live on a toxic waste dumb. I would image there is but I've yet to turn anything up.

[The Executive Director]

Hi, Luna.

Actually there are state and federal statutes mandating both public and private disclosures relating to disposition of hazardous waste on a property. Unfortunately, most people (including government officials) are unaware of where to find this information or how to compel the government to disclose it.

You might try Parts 111 and 201 of Michigan's Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act, which spells out the law about disclosures including the information ordinary citizens have the right to get from the Department of Environmental Quality.

Regards, Bill

[afford]

We are better off today than we were eight years ago

[Bridget Dupont-Tingley, Editor, L.A.W.]

Hello Afford,

You think we are better off today than we were eight years ago? If you mean that thousands of loads of severly contaminated soil are no longer located between Ottawa and Division, you would be right. Many loads for sure went to the water filtration plant that has now been renovated into offices and available residential condo/apt. housing. The other thousands of truck loads of waste went to parts of this city still unknown. Where you place thousands of tons of contaminated waste is no simple task.

If all these companies did illegal removal of highly toxic waste without proper precautions once, you can bet they did it elsehwere as well. Bad behavior does not stop unless it's forced to stop. So, feel free to place the positive spin on this issue if you choose. Just rememember that one persons gain (waste being removed illegally from one site) could be someone elses loss (that waste has to go somewhere, could it be near you now)?

Until the courts allow full discovery, no one but those involved in the cover up will know for sure.

Regards,

[john]

The government should be persuaded to pay for all healthcare

[Bridget Dupont-Tingley, Editor, L.A.W.]

Hello John,

We certainly appreciate your feedback, but frankly, it adds nothing to the discussion at hand on the issue we were talking about in regards to the B & G toxic waste problem. That's too bad as that issue is real, local and has implications to everyone in this city.

In regards to your offhand statement, "the government should be persuaded to pay for all healthcare..." Sorry fella, the U.S. isn't The United People's Socialist States". You want socialized medicine, off you go, plane ticket in hand to Canada, France, UK and others countries. You might want to study up on all the difficulties they have had with socialized medicince and they are much smaller in terms of population and costs then we are. Just look at the Treasury Secretary of Canada who is a close friend of the Clintons. This woman got breast cancer this year and her doctor told her to go to The U.S. for treatment. Off she went with all her big bucks to California to get treated as she didn't want to take a chance in the Canadian system. If that doesn't speak volumes that those who implimented their health care system don't want it or use it, who else should?

Talk about "medicine for disaster"... U.S. government intervention and oversight into everyone's medical care would be crippling at best.

No John, we need to stick to what Americans do best, a free economy and a capitalistic society. Historically, we have used that base to be the biggest, best and most advanced country in history. There might be some fine tuning needed to our medical system to improve the problem areas, but socializing will not be the answer.

So, say no to Hillary Care and Hillary's Gift to America. It's disaster in a designer pantsuit waiting to happen.

Regards,