Metro Detroiters were astonished to learn in August that radioactive waste from the Manhattan Project was headed to a landfill in Van Buren Township. The news, first reported by the Detroit Free Press, revealed that waste from the Niagara Falls Storage Site near Lewiston, New York, was being shipped to Wayne Disposal, taking many elected officials by surprise.
Subsequent reports, including those from Planet Detroit, show that over 300,000 cubic yards of radioactive waste from at least 10 other U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sites had already been sent to the same landfill, with two other locations and the Niagara site due to send more material.
These shipments of radioactive material to Michigan’s most heavily populated county led to a public outcry and questions about the risks the material could pose.
Here, we answer some common questions about the radioactive waste coming to Metro Detroit.
Note: the following information applies primarily to the radioactive waste being shipped by the Army Corps, not other radioactive waste that facilities may handle in the state.
Why is radioactive waste coming to Michigan?
Wayne Disposal is one of only five facilities vetted by the Corps’ Radiation Safety Support Team to receive the material sent from the Niagara Falls site. It’s the only such facility east of the Mississippi River.
Lieutenant Colonel Robert M. Burnham, the Corps’ Buffalo District commander, said at a town hall meeting in Belleville on Sept. 4 that Wayne Disposal’s location “does become an economic advantage” because of its proximity to sites managed by the Corps, many of which are in the eastern U.S.
A 1992 Supreme Court ruling also made it difficult to block this material by declaring that garbage from out of state was a commodity that couldn’t be restricted under the U.S. Constitution’s Commerce Clause.
However, state Rep. Reggie Miller (D-Van Buren Township) introduced a bill that would ban elevated radiation waste from Michigan landfills and believes she may have found a way around the Supreme Court ruling.
“If we focus on health, safety and environmental protections, it avoids the appearance of outright discrimination (against Wayne Disposal),” she told the Free Press.
What kind of risk does this material carry?
The Corps hasn’t identified any waste coming to Michigan as having radiation above the level of 50 picocuries per gram. One picocurie is roughly equivalent to naturally occurring background levels found in the environment.
Public officials have emphasized the relatively low level of radiation in waste being transported by the Corps. These radiation levels are below the threshold for wastes licensed by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Committee.
The waste sent to Michigan is called technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive material (TENORM). The EPA has warned that TENORM produced by oil and gas production presents risks for those working with the material or living within 100 meters of a disposal site.
Residents and public officials have voiced concern about the concentration of such large quantities of waste in a heavily populated area of the Great Lakes watershed. They have drawn attention to radium-226, a common isotope in materials shipped to Michigan, capable of mixing in water.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, radium exposure may lead to bone cancer, lymphoma, leukemia and aplastic anemia if the material is inhaled or ingested over long periods.
In an affidavit filed as part of a lawsuit that looked to block the waste from coming to Michigan, Daniel Hansley Alford, the South Huron Valley Utility Authority’s system manager, said WDI has a permit to discharge its wastewater into the SHVUA system.
But he said the landfill’s permit doesn’t set limits or require testing for radioactive material or TENORM.
SHVUA, which discharges into the Detroit River and Lake Erie, also doesn’t test or treat its wastewater for TENORM or other radiological material, Alford said.
Republic spokesperson Melissa Quillard didn’t answer Planet Detroit’s question on whether the facility was testing its wastewater for radioactive material. In a statement, Quillard said that Wayne Disposal has a treatment process for leachate and stormwater that is “an industry standard and well-documented to remove radionuclides.”
How much material is coming to Michigan and where is it coming from?
The Corps has already sent roughly 303,000 cubic yards of elevated radiation waste from 12 sites to Wayne Disposal, and it plans to send around 80,000 more.
According to information provided by the Corps, shipments from sites managed by the Corps began coming to Wayne Disposal in 2017.
These sites include the Niagara Falls Storage Site and Luckey Site as well as the Harshaw Chemical Company Site in Cleveland, Ohio; Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Middletown, Iowa; St. Louis Downtown Site and North County sites in St. Louis, Missouri; Middlesex Municipal Landfill and Middlesex Sampling Plant sites in Middlesex, New Jersey; Maywood site in Maywood, New Jersey; Tonawanda Landfill Vicinity Property and Seaway Site in Tonawanda, New York; and Staten Island Warehouse Site in Staten Island, New York.
The Corps also shipped 33,000 tons of material from the DuPont Chamber Works Site in Deepwater, NJ, with plans to send 26,000 more.
The Corps administers the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP), which cleans up contamination from sites associated with the nation’s early atomic energy program.
Who is trying to keep radioactive waste out of Michigan?
In addition to Rep. Miller’s legislation to keep elevated radiation waste out of the state, State Sen. Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton) introduced legislation to add regulations for facilities receiving hazardous and radioactive waste.
This includes a ban on new hazardous and radioactive waste injection wells and stronger financial assurance requirements for facilities to protect taxpayers from paying for cleanups.
Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Kevin J. Cox issued an injunction as part of the lawsuit brought by four communities near Wayne Disposal to stop radioactive material from coming to the facility, which blocked radioactive waste from going to the facility.
But this injunction was amended to block only material from the Niagara site, allowing shipments from other sites to continue. This lawsuit has since been moved to federal court.
Residents from the group Michigan Against Atomic Waste said they plan to oppose Wayne Disposal’s upcoming permit renewal.
What do we know about Wayne Disposal and Republic Services?
U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) has drawn attention to Republic Services and Wayne Disposal’s history of violations. Republic acquired US Ecology in 2022, which owned Wayne Disposal and two sites in Detroit that have also raised environmental justice concerns.
“Look at the history of the company…this is a company that’s been fined a million dollars this year,” Tlaib said in August.
Wayne Disposal has received violations for leachate spills into surface water, improper venting and monitoring of hazardous waste in underground storage, and disposal of hazardous waste in nonhazardous waste areas.
Republic’s US Ecology facility in Detroit’s Poletown East neighborhood received violations for odor issues and a leak that posed a hazard to groundwater.
Melissa Quillard, a spokesperson for Republic, told Planet Detroit that the company recently completed upgrades at the Poletown East facility, including “the installation of a state-of-the-art tank system, groundwater monitoring wells, and enhanced pre-acceptance procedures.”