(WWJ) — Multiple Southeast Michigan communities have filed a lawsuit looking to stop an Arizona-based waste company from shipping toxic waste to a landfill in Wayne County.
The cities of Belleville and Romulus, as well as Van Buren and Canton Townships, sued Republic Services this week asking a judge to stop shipments of waste associated with the Manhattan Project, which developed atomic bombs during and after World War II at a site in upstate New York.
An estimated 25 truckloads of waste per week are expected to be brought from the Niagara Falls Storage Site in Lewiston, New York, lasting into early 2025. The US Army Corps of Engineers would be overseeing transport of the low-level radioactive soil and concrete.
Now the lawsuit filed in Wayne County Circuit Court is seeking a court order that would halt the shipments until the communities can weigh in on Republic's hazardous waste license from the state.
If no court order is issued, the shipments would have the green light to begin. No court date has been set.
The waste consists of 6,000 cubic yards of soil and concrete and 4,000 gallons of contaminated groundwater and it would be taken to Wayne Disposal, a hazardous waste landfill in Van Buren Township run by Republic.
Earlier this summer the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) approved the shipment. While federal hazardous waste management laws do not require shipments to be approved by states, the US Army Corps of Engineers seeks approval anyway, a USACE spokesperson said, according to a report from The Detroit News.
Many local officials and residents have been pushing back on the plan since it was announced, including Wayne County Executive Warren Evans, who said last month the county should not be a dumping ground for hazardous waste.
"There has to be a better way of handling and disposing of hazardous waste and toxic chemicals that doesn't always involve those highly unwelcome materials finding their way into Wayne County," Evans said in a statement. "While I understand that those materials have to go somewhere, and few if any public officials are willing to welcome toxic waste with open arms, there needs to be a solution, through new policy or legislation, that doesn't equal Wayne County as a dumping ground for what no one else wants. Because that is an assignment we simply will not accept."
