ROMULUS (WWJ) – Community leaders in Romulus are continuing to speak out after hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxic waste from the Ohio train derailment were shipped to Michigan.
More than 210,000 gallons of waste containing vinyl chloride were shipped to the Romulus Republic HW Injection Well and the US Ecology Haz Waste Landfill in Belleville, also known as Wayne Disposal. It was a move state and local officials said late last week they had know prior knowledge of.
While further shipments of the waste have been paused, protesters gathered in Romulus Sunday to speak out against the chemicals coming to Wayne County, including.
On Tuesday Romulus Mayor Robert McCraight said the recent shipments of waste shine a light on the city’s battle against the injection well, which the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) says has a history of noncompliance.
“It’s opened new eyes to this argument,” McCraight said, noting the city has been fighting against having the facility in town since the 1990s.
“We’re also engaging the discussion on a higher level now just to make sure that this is the right place to dispose of any of these chemicals. It never made sense to me and a lot of people in this community why you’d do this near the nation’s largest supply of fresh water,” McCraight said.
The mayor said Romulus has “never approved it, never accepted it, we’ve just never had the authority to shut it down.
As for the waste that already arrived in Romulus, councilperson Kathleen Abdo said it's still concerning.
"My concern is the material that did get sent here. That well was shut down recently for leakage," Abdo said." "We've had trouble with it over and over. Is the state looking into that? How do we know that they haven't injected it, if they're going to inject it, that the well's going to leak?"
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EGLE officials say both facilities are licensed to dispose of hazardous waste and are regularly inspected by the department. They both also regularly handle hazardous waste from Michigan and out-of-state.
Federal and state statutes require detailed manifests of deliveries be kept, but there is no requirement to notify state or local officials of individual shipments that arrive or are processed, according to EGLE.
EGLE says the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently in charge of all decisions on waste disposal from the Ohio site and it was made aware of the disposal of soils at the Wayne Disposal site late Thursday afternoon and liquids at the Romulus site on Friday.
No further shipments have come to Michigan since Friday, according to EGLE.
The Romulus well, jointly regulated by EGLE and the EPA, is the only one in the state licensed for hazardous waste disposal.
The facility was found to be out of compliance last July when an EGLE inspection found multiple issues, including:
• Inadequate waste identification and manifesting/labeling
• Liquid containment modification without permit modification (there were no releases to the environment)
• Facility inspection requirements not met
• Improper tank system requirements
A follow up inspection on on Oct. 3 determined these violations had been addressed, according to EGLE
In January, an EGLE inspection identified hazardous waste violations related to container labeling and alarm system function. The container violations were addressed at the time of the inspection. The alarm issue has been resolved, according to EGLE.
The facility is currently considered in compliance and able to process and dispose of hazardous waste. It has been in violation at least five times since 2021, according to a report from the Detroit News.
The Wayne Disposal facility in Belleville, meanwhile, has not had any violations since at least 2017.
The derailment occurred just before 9 p.m. on Feb. 3, when an overheated wheel bearing caused the nearly 150-car train to decelerate before an automatic breaking system took effect. Around 50 cars derailed, 11 of which contained hazardous chemicals, including several carrying vinyl chloride, which is highly toxic and known to cause cancer.
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