Overview:
- Environmental groups have secured a public health assessment for Wyandotte, addressing BASF's long-term toxic groundwater discharge into the Detroit River.
- This assessment will evaluate existing data on chemical pollution from BASF and associated human health risks in soil, air, and water, along with mitigation strategies.
- It aims to resolve decades of inaction that have allowed BASF to continue polluting despite regulatory consent orders from the 1980s and 1990s.
Environmental groups successfully petitioned for a public health assessment for Wyandotte, where BASF has been discharging massive quantities of toxic groundwater into the Detroit River for decades.
“This is an important victory for the community of Wyandotte, which has experienced toxic dumping and contamination from BASF Wyandotte for over 60 years,” the nonprofit For the Love of Water said in a statement. FLOW and other environmental organizations petitioned the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in February for the assessment.
In November, a whistleblower filed a complaint with the Michigan Attorney General’s office alleging state regulators failed to enforce laws to rein in pollution from BASF’s facility.
The assessment will look at existing data about chemical pollution from BASF Wyandotte and human health risks that might be related to discharges in soil, air and water as well as how these risks can be mitigated. Although federal authorities will need to approve the study, Michigan’s Department of Health and Human Services will conduct it.
ATSDR and other agencies use public health assessments to evaluate Superfund sites and other highly contaminated areas, where there are often multiple contaminants and multiple pathways through which the public might be exposed to pollution.
Polluted groundwater flowing from the BASF facility contains PFAS chemicals, mercury, arsenic, napthalene, benzene and other chemicals. Some groundwater has had a pH as high as 13.22. The Environmental Protection Agency defines substances with a pH of 12.5 or above as hazardous waste, a level of contamination capable of corroding steel and aluminum.
The assessment could help cut through decades of inaction that have allowed BASF to keep polluting despite consent orders from state and federal regulators in the 80s and 90s, said Carrie Le Seur, legal director for FLOW.
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A state employee has filed a complaint with the Michigan Attorney General’s office, alleging state regulators failed to stop BASF from releasing toxic chemicals into the Detroit River from its Wyandotte facility over five decades.
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The pollution enters the river just upstream from the City of Wyandotte’s drinking water intake.
She said the Environmental Protection Agency had previously denied BASF’s pollution constituted an emergency. The agency has said that Wyandotte’s drinking water intake, which is 1700 feet from the pollution source, was not impacted.
“To answer the question of ‘what’s the emergency?’ we triggered this fairly obscure process,” Le Seur said of the public health assessment.
BASF pollution could be affecting fish and drinking water
La Seur said she was most concerned about people catching and eating fish in the area around BASF. Catfish and whitefish can bioaccumulate mercury and PCBs, which are taken up by organisms on the riverbed and consumed by fish.
The Detroit River and western Lake Erie are also considered the “walleye capital of the world,” with professional fishing tournaments and a $244 million (in Canadian dollars) commercial fishery located near Wheatley, Ontario.
MDHHS considers Detroit River and Lake Erie walleye to be safer to eat than species like carp and catfish but advises residents to only eat six servings per year.
Meanwhile, there is still uncertainty about impacts to Wyandotte’s drinking water.
A 2022 EGLE review found the location of the drinking water intake and the amount of river water mixing with BASF’s pollution meant it was unlikely to “cause a public health impact that requires immediate attention.”
However, the report noted that there was “associated uncertainty,” and additional modeling could be used to understand the situation better.
Kenneth Drouillard, a University of Windsor researcher who studies river sediments, previously told Planet Detroit that seiche events, periods of strong wind that can push water from one end of Lake Erie to the other, can draw water out of the river and disturb sediments.
He said that a seiche event or high-water levels could kick up sediments and send contamination in the direction of Wyandotte’s drinking water intake.
BASF spokesperson Molly Birman said the chemical company hasn’t been contacted about the public health assessment yet, but that “BASF believes that any assessment needs to be based on sound science and accurately applied.”
“Consistent with our commitment to the Responsible Care Program, the company proactively employs comprehensive safety and environmental protective measures in our operations,” Birman said, referring to a chemical industry program to regulate itself.
The nonprofit Union of Concerned Scientists has criticized the responsible care program for providing guidance that is “neither required nor verified, and it focuses on the ‘more universal’ level of commitment to safety values, rather than individual and tangible plant safety.”
Birman previously said BASF was working with EPA and EGLE on a plan to stop contaminated groundwater from entering the river, which includes building an underground physical barrier along the north, east, and southern property lines.EPA approved a 60% intermediate design for mitigating groundwater contamination leaving the site. The next step will be a 95% remedial design due in August 2025.