Hundreds of people attended a town hall meeting in Belleville on Wednesday night to hear from public officials and voice their anger over the transfer of nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project to the Wayne Disposal Inc. landfill in Van Buren Township. 

The meeting, hosted by U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor) and Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, was often rowdy. Some attendees shouted expletives, and lawmakers and environmental officials often struggled to be heard. Dingell said the meeting aimed to discuss hazardous waste storage at Wayne Disposal and ensure community safety.

Lawmakers stressed the need for new legislation to prevent dumping in Michigan communities. At the same time, state and federal agency officials reassured residents that the transported materials contain low radiation levels. They also said extensive safety measures were in place to protect against accidents. 

Many attendees were incredulous that the nuclear waste was coming to Michigan, expressing concern about potential health risks, water quality issues and damage to property values.

Although a U.S. Supreme Court ruling bars communities from blocking garbage from entering their states, lawmakers said legislation could stop the flow of hazardous waste into the state.

“Michigan is America’s dumping ground, and it has to stop,” said State Sen. Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton). He introduced legislation in June to raise tipping fees for liquid hazardous waste going to deep injection wells like the Detroit Industrial Well in Romulus. He said lawmakers could also “ban these facilities outright.” So far, the legislation has not advanced out of committee.

State Rep. Reggie Miller (D-Van Buren Township) said she would introduce legislation later this month to raise the “tipping fees” on landfill waste, which are far lower than those in some neighboring states. Michigan charges 36 cents per ton for landfill waste, compared to Ohio’s $4.75 and Wisconsin’s $13.

Officials promise protections from nuclear waste and better notification in the future

Officials from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said they are taking measures to protect the public, adding that they had been sending materials to Wayne Disposal since 2018. Andrew Kornacki, chief of public affairs for the Corps’  Buffalo District, confirmed that this included radioactive materials from a site in Luckey, Ohio.

The incoming batch of nuclear waste is coming from the Niagara Falls Storage Site near Lewiston, New York. Brent LaSpada, the Corps’ project manager for the Niagara Falls site, previously told Planet Detroit that Wayne Disposal would receive 6,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil and concrete. Shipments will begin in late September and continue for six to seven months, with roughly 25 trucks arriving weekly. Lined and covered trucks will transport the materials using federal highways.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert M. Burnham, the Corps’ Buffalo District commander, said there had never been an accident transporting such material under the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, which cleans up contaminated sites from the nation’s early atomic energy program. He said soil will be tested and placed in sealed bags before shipping.

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Why is radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project coming to Michigan?

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Burnham said Wayne Disposal is one of only five sites vetted and certified by the Corps’ Radiation Safety Support Team and the only facility east of the Mississippi River. He said Wayne Disposal’s location “does become an economic advantage” because of its proximity to FUSRAP sites.

Several lawmakers, including Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, expressed frustration that they found out about the shipment of radioactive waste from a report in the Detroit Free Press. Liz Brown, director of EGLE’s Materials Management Division, promised better notification in the future.

“We will copy the appropriate person that’s been identified at Wayne County… That will happen moving forward,” she said.

Brown emphasized the low level of radiation in the nuclear waste being transported, saying it was less radioactive than “low-level radioactive waste,” which is a technical term for materials that are generally disposed of in facilities near ground level rather than in an underground geologic repository.

She also showed a diagram depicting the type of site where the material will be stored. It shows two liners below the landfill material, a leachate collection system, leak detection system and a cap with multiple layers of clay and soil as well as two liners.

Russ Knocke, vice president for public and government affairs for landfill-owner Republic Services, said 100 monitoring locations would be set up to look for pollution migrating into air, soil, surface water, and groundwater. Forty of these would monitor for radionuclides or the radioactive form of certain elements.

Residents question the need to dump radioactive waste in Michigan

Many residents appeared dissatisfied with the safety assurances offered by public officials on Wednesday night.

Detroiter Jennifer Fassbender pointed to the long half-life of the radioactive materials being transported and said she was “horrified” that there were no containers for the material beyond the landfill liners.

Half-life refers to the time it takes for half the radioactive atoms in a radionuclide to decay. LaSpada said the materials would contain radioisotopes, including uranium-235 and uranium-238, which have half-lives of roughly 700 million years and 4.5 billion years, respectively.

Connie Boris, executive director of the Wayne County Conservation District, said it would be better to keep nuclear waste in place rather than dispersing it throughout the country.

Neil Miller, head of the Corps’ Buffalo District Environmental Branch, said the Niagara site “has uncontrolled contamination spread throughout the property” and that it is necessary to transport it to a safer facility.

James Bratby, a resident of Van Buren township who attended the meeting, told Planet Detroit that the threat from hazardous and radioactive waste in the country could garner bipartisan support.

He pointed to Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-MO) bill to extend the period for filing claims under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act as evidence that even extremely conservative lawmakers might have some interest in passing laws to address radiation impacts. However, he questioned why sites in Michigan and New York weren’t included in the bill.

Bratby said Michigan needed to raise the cost of bringing in landfill waste from out-of-state and reconsider where waste would go.

“I’m not entirely sure why you seem to pick areas of massive population density as the same places to put the most hazardous material,” he said.