Wayne Co. landfill for hazardous waste seeking to expand by 5M cubic yards
Wayne Co. landfill for hazardous waste seeking to expand by 5M cubic yards
A Wayne County landfill that’s drawn recent public attention for a scrapped plan to accept radioactive waste from the cleanup of a WWII-era atomic development site is seeking to expand its capacity, state officials confirmed Friday.
Wayne Disposal Inc., in Van Buren Township, is currently licensed to hold up to 22 million cubic yards of waste, officials with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy said. If the expansion is approved by the state, its capacity will jump to 27 million cubic yards.
Tracy Kecskemeti, assistant director of EGLE’s Materials Management Division, said the expansion would be vertical.
“For visual understanding of what that looks like, the landfill is currently 132 feet above grade,” Kecskemeti told The Detroit News. “The existing license allows it to get to 150 feet. The proposed expansion would take it to 225 feet.”
Kecskemeti said the expansion request is being considered in conjunction with renewal of the site’s license to accept hazardous materials, which has been expired since May 2022. She said it’s not unusual for a facility to operate with an expired license and they are permitted to do so, provided that “the holder reapplies in a timely manner before it expires.”
She said Wayne Disposal filed for the renewal and expansion in 2022.
” … these reviews are extensive technical and engineering reviews and take quite a bit of time,” she said. “And we do have a backlog of permits due to resource issues.”
Wayne Disposal Inc. and its parent company, Republic Services, didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking comment.
At least one elected official has signaled their opposition.
“I’m strongly opposed to the proposed WDI expansion,” State Rep. Reggie Miller, D-Van Buren Township, said Wednesday on Facebook. Miller plans to hold a press conference Monday with several other Wayne County officials to fight to keep hazardous materials out of the community.
By law, EGLE must open a public comment period before approving the license renewal and expansion request. That period officially opened this week and closes at 5 p.m. Sept. 29. It includes an informational meeting and public hearing slated for Sept. 18. Instructions for submitting comments can be found on the state’s website.
Wayne Disposal is one of the few landfills in the U.S. licensed to handle certain hazardous waste. The facility was first established in 1970, before state and federal hazardous waste regulations were created, according to EGLE.
The landfill mostly accepts materials from environmental cleanup or remediation sites, including soil that may have flammable, corrosive or toxic components, Kecskemeti said. It’s also permitted to take in polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) which are man-made organic chemicals that have been banned from being manufactured in the U.S. since 1979, and radiological material, defined by the federal Environmental Protection Agency as “naturally occurring radioactive materials that have been concentrated or exposed to the accessible environment as a result of human activities such as manufacturing, mineral extraction, or water processing.”
The latter category is at issue in a Wayne County Circuit Court case. Earlier this month, a judge granted four communities a preliminary injunction to keep some materials, including radioactive waste from the Niagra Falls Storage Site in Lewiston, New York, out of the landfill.
Officials from the plaintiff communities — the cities of Belleville and Romulus, the townships of Canton and Van Buren, and Wayne County — applauded the decision but called for state legislation to keep radioactive waste out of Michigan entirely.
Officials said a hearing for that case is scheduled for Monday. Kecskemeti said while EGLE is not directly involved in the lawsuit, state officials are “keeping an eye on it.”
Community pushback foiled a recent proposal by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had planned to send about 6,000 cubic yards of soil and concrete contaminated with low levels of radioactivity from New York to Wayne Disposal.
The Army Corps is cleaning up the New York site and others that were contaminated by early atomic energy and atomic weaponry development, including the Manhattan Project, which built the atomic bomb during World War II.
Following community blowback, local officials said the Army Corps abandoned the plan in favor sending the waste to a site in Texas.
mreinhart@detroitnews.com