RIVER OF CORRUPTION: THE MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY

[Note:  This is the fifth installment of our series about the failure of our public officials and institutions to respond to the Toxic Towers dumping scandal.]

It will come as a surprise to no one that the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) was ineffective in handling the illegal dumping of contaminated soil at the Monroe Avenue Water Filtration Plant and other locations in the Grand Rapids vicinity.  First of all, the MDEQ has an unofficial policy to not police brownfield redevelopment in urban areas.  Second, its resources for field investigations are limited, so that a determined polluter could obstruct an investigation with enough lies and false evidence.

Finally, the MDEQ's culture of accommodation instead of confrontation makes its officials generally gun-shy in putting tough questions to miscreants, which has the perverse result of the MDEQ excusing the miscreants' violations when they are discovered to justify its prior lax enforcement.

Altogether this means that the MDEQ lacked the institutional will, means, and integrity to challenge the false affidavits and rigged soil tests that the Boardwalk developers presented to it to obstruct its investigation into charges that they were dumping contaminated Boardwalk soil at the Filtration Plant and elsewhere.  Once the MDEQ signed off on this false evidence to exonerate the Boardwalk developers and their contractors Pioneer Inc. and Dykema Excavators Inc. of wrongdoing, nothing has shaken the MDEQ from this stance -- not even two demands by the Michigan attorney general's office to properly investigate the dumping allegations were heeded.  The MDEQ simply excluded from inquiry all the evidence that contradicted its original exoneration of the developers and their contractors.

The misfeasance, if not malfeasance, of the MDEQ in the Toxic Towers dumping scandal is detailed in a report we sent to Assistant Attorney General Thomas Piotrowski in August 2004.  (Click here for the report.)  We'll cover only the salient points of the MDEQ's failure to serve the public interest here:

1. The MDEQ opened its original investigation of the Boardwalk developers and contractors on November 2, 2000, under pressure from local state legislators and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.  On November 8, 2000, the MDEQ convened a meeting with representatives of the Boardwalk development companies, Pioneer, Dykema Excavators, Superior Environmental, and the City of Grand Rapids.  The MDEQ officials instructed them to provide an explanation of all soil removal activities at the Boardwalk project site.
2. By November 16, 2000, Superior Environmental, Attorney William Fisher, and Attorney Gary Schenk submitted their clients' alibi to the MDEQ.  They whitewashed the matter by stating that none of the off-site dumping of contaminated soil from the Boardwalk project site ever occurred.  (Apparently, they were not aware of the conclusive videotape surveillance recording that very activity by Pioneer and Dykema Excavators.)
3. On November 17, 2000, then-director of the MDEQ Russell Harding parroted this alibi in a letter to the State House and State Senate and stated that it was a sufficient explanation before any evidence supporting the alibi had even been collected the MDEQ.
4. On November 20, 2000, the MDEQ instructed the Boardwalk developers and contractors to provide evidence of their alibi.  On January 2, 2001, Superior Environmental did so in the form a report (sometimes referred to as the "Marshall Report").  The report concluded that there had been no wrongdoing based upon the evidence in its appendices.  This evidence consisted of affidavits of personnel who worked at the Boardwalk project site that falsely denied any off-site disposal of the site's soil and soil tests that were rigged to sample clean fill and not the actual contaminated soil removed from the site.  The Marshall Report confirmed MDEQ Director Harding's letter to state legislators and so the MDEQ exonerated the Boardwalk developers and their contractors of any wrongdoing.
5. Soon after this Assistant A.G. Piotrowski learned that there existed hundreds of hours of surveillance videotape that showed that the Marshall Report was a fraud.  On February 21, 2001, he instructed the MDEQ to assign a criminal investigator to investigate the charges of illegal dumping against the Boardwalk developers, Pioneer, and Dykema Excavators.  The MDEQ responded to Piotrowski in bad faith by assigning a newly hired detective who had a notorious reputation in the law enforcement community as an incompetent.
6. A year later in March 2002 the MDEQ detective concluded her investigation and again exonerated the Boardwalk developers, Pioneer, and Dykema Excavators of wrongdoing on the basis of a lack evidence.  However, her investigation officially excluded from any consideration the very evidence that incriminated these suspects and the original MDEQ inquiry.  Excluded were:  Soil tests of the major dumpsite, the Filtration Plant; all of the surveillance videotape; the photographs showing one of the soil tests at the Boardwalk project site was rigged; and even an admission she had obtained from a Pioneer truck driver that he signed his affidavit knowing that it contained false statements!
7. Despite the egregiously flawed nature of this investigation (indeed, it is hard to see how this evidence implicating the Boardwalk developers and their contractors was accidentally excluded from consideration), it was accepted by law enforcement and the courts as gospel and the Marshall Report was falsely enshrined by the Boardwalk attorneys as the official explanation of the events that had occurred at the Boardwalk project site.
8. However, in May 2003 the Local Area Watch produced a report containing several series of prints from the surveillance videotape evidence that clearly showed Pioneer and Dykema Excavators removing contaminated soil from the Boardwalk project site in direct contradiction to the affidavits in the Marshall Report.  L.A.W. sent copies of the report to several state officials.
9. Assistant A.G. Piotrowski received a copy of this report and then reviewed the videotape evidence for himself.  Consequently he ordered the MDEQ to collect soil samples from the Filtration Plant for testing, which the MDEQ did on February 2, 2004.  On April 30, 2004, Jim Sygo, deputy director of the MDEQ, informed Piotrowski that the soil test results and the Marshall Report once again proved that no contaminated soil from the Boardwalk project site had been dumped at the Filtration Plant.  However, Sygo's statement to Piotrowski was false and misleading, and it had no scientific foundation.
10. On June 30, 2004, former MDEQ official and forensic geologist Robert Hayes conducted the first and only scientific analysis of the Filtration Plant soil test results and discovered that the soil had the same unique chemical fingerprint as the Boardwalk's contaminated soil.  Then on July 24, 2004, Superior Environmental filed a pleading with the Kent County Circuit Court in which it disavowed the Marshall Report and refused to affirm its truthfulness.

Thus, all of the evidence the MDEQ has relied upon to exonerate the Boardwalk developers, Pioneer, and Dykema Excavators of illegally dumping the Boardwalk's contaminated soil at the Filtration Plant has been either scientifically refuted or disavowed by its authors.  Yet the MDEQ continues to dig in its heels and deny reality.  The public interest, health, and safety be damned when it comes to the MDEQ protecting its bureaucratic hide. 

Comments

[Lori Lane]

I would like to have information sent on who are the divisions in charge, and would take my complaint involving corruption in the OEPA and The MDEQ, This ones big. Thank you for any advice you could give.

[The Executive Director]

Hi, Lori.

There are three state offices you should consider bringing your complaint to:

[1] The MDEQ's Office of Criminal Investigation,
[2] The public corruption unit of the Department of Attorney General,
[3] The Michigan auditor general.

You can get the addresses you need at www.michigan.gov. You may also consider contacting your local state representative and senator. Ask them for their assistance in getting your complaint to the proper agency.

When making a complaint, especially about corruption, I find it helps to be able to summarize the wrongdoing in a single paragraph. To get the attention your complaint merits, your description should "reek of criminality" -- if the problem is genuinely one of corruption. However, make that the facts reek and not the adjectives.

If you can't summarize your complaint in a way that indicates criminality, give some thought to whether the real issue is incompetence or neglect on the part of the government. That is serious too.

Once you have a good idea of how to initially frame your complaint, provide a short chronology of what occurred and how the government to respond properly. Be as specific as you can with names and dates and other relevant facts, but keep your presentation to one or two pages. It's OK to leave out useful details in the expectation that the state will follow up with you to get additional information.

If you have evidence supporting your complaint, such as records, photographs, etc., note that you do have these documents but do not include them with your complaint UNLESS that are immediately helpful to clarifying the issue. If you think you should attach a document or two, be sure to send only a copy and not originals.

Finally, conclude your complaint with a paragraph that states what relief you are looking for from the state. Even if it is only to set the record straight, be sure to tell them what you want.

The purpose of this advice is to keep your complaint simple (initially at least) so that those who know nothing about it can readily grasp that something wrong has happened and action is needed.

I hope this helps, Lori. Good luck.

Regards,
Bill Tingley
Executive Director, L.A.W.