A Wayne County hazardous waste landfill is getting ready to take 6,000 cubic yards of dirt and concrete, as well as 4,000 gallons of groundwater that is high in radiation, from a site in New York where the Manhattan Project worked on making the atomic bomb during and right after World War II.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is cleaning up the Niagara Falls Storage Site in Lewiston, New York. They think that until January 2025, 25 semi-trucks will bring the high-level radioactive wastes to the Wayne Disposal facility in Van Buren Township, which is just off Interstate 94.
Avery Schneider, deputy chief of public relations for the Army Corps Buffalo District, said that the removal of trash from New York, its transport by truck to Michigan, and its disposal in Wayne County all follow all local, state, and federal rules for dealing with trash of this nature.
“The first thing we look at in all of these projects is how we can do it safely — from the employees on-site who are working around the material, excavating it and preparing it for removal, to the communities around the site, to the folks who are going to transport it out to Belleville, Michigan, to where it can be safely stored,” he added.
But that’s a touchy subject for many people in southeast Michigan who are worried about having one of the biggest facilities in the country for processing and dumping hazardous trash right outside their door. In February 2023, dangerous waste from a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, was sent to Wayne Disposal and other facilities in southeast Michigan. This caused a lot of anger among the public, local officials, and state and federal politicians. People from the government wanted to know why the locals weren’t told about the packages ahead of time. Because of pressure, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency stopped sending waste from the Ohio train accident to Michigan.
But every day, Wayne Disposal and Michigan Disposal, a close hazardous waste processing facility, take in different kinds of hazardous waste, often from other states.
The Free Press told Michigan Rep. Reggie Miller, D-Van Buren Township, that high-level radioactive trash from the making of the atomic bomb in New York would be sent to Wayne Disposal soon.
“I didn’t know about this and wasn’t told about it.” “That makes me mad,” she said. “I’m not happy about that, to say the very least.”
Miller said that the packages that are traveling on public roads worry her the most.
“That’s always been my issue — what happens if that semi overturns and it goes into the water?” she pointed out. “We have the largest lake in Wayne County (Belleville Lake) and that’s always been a concern.”
