FLINT (WWJ) – Michigan officials are taking action against Flint-based Lockhart Chemical Company in the wake of a large oil spill in the Flint River earlier this summer.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel announced Monday her department has ordered Lockhart to immediately stop using underground water disposal systems.
The Order, authorized under Michigan’s Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act, requires Lockhart to immediately cease use of leaky underground tunnels that carry the facility’s wastewater offsite for treatment.
It requires all water from the site must be pumped into surface tanks and disposed off off-site until or unless the company properly addresses a 36-point action plan to correct the issues. The entire step-by-step order can be viewed on the state’s website.
Lockhart is also ordered to put protective structures around leaking pumps on the facility and to provide photographic documentation of its progress in meeting the requirements of the Order.
The spill back on June 15 triggered a wide-scale response after thousands of gallons of dark black, oil-based material had polluted the river in a stretch about 20 miles long. The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) used laboratory chemical analysis “fingerprinting” to establish that the pollutants entering the Flint River near Lockhart are a match to the wastewater inside the facility.
This isn’t the first time the state’s environmental agency has investigated Lockhart. Nessel’s office says authorities have been investigating the facility’s systems dating back to April 2019.
“I made a promise to the residents of Flint that I will not stand by and allow any entity to endanger the health, safety or welfare of the community, and I am keeping my promise,” Nessel said, per a press release. “I will not allow a company to threaten the safety of residents and the health of our environment. This company was given multiple opportunities to fix the problems at their facility and they refused. Now they must face the consequences.”
Lockhart Chemical, which has operated on James P. Cole Boulevard in Flint since the 1980s, manufactures and provides underbody coatings, metalworking additives, hydraulic fluids and lubricants. This manufacturing creates hazardous waste, and officials say the company has not been properly disposing of it, due to faulty systems under the facility.
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