Over 750 contamination sites in Michigan need immediate action to address human health exposure risks – but because of limited staff and funding, it will be years before all the sites are dealt with and the risks are controlled.
That’s the result of a classification system the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), is using to sort the state’s 26,000 contamination sites and determine which should be dealt with first. This is the first attempt by the state in years to assess the relative risks of sites listed under Part 201 of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act, the state’s cleanup law.
The bottom line: Michigan taxpayers will foot the bill for a century of chemical waste mismanagement, and what will end up being a century-long cleanup effort.
When EGLE’s classification initiative began in May 2023, over 60 per cent of locations covered by Part 201 had a ‘Risks Not Determined’ classification. With the help of a contractor, EGLE reduced this number to less than 5 per cent, and that effort continues. This will enable EGLE to focus efforts on the locations with the highest risk.
Merely confirming and creating a plan to deal with the high-risk sites will take over a year. EGLE is creating a unit that will focus on the 750-plus sites that have been classified in the last year as “risk present and immediate” to provide better clarity of the risk and determine whether there is a liable party. EGLE’s goal is to have all of these sites reviewed and either reclassified or put in a prioritization plan the next 18-24 months.
Sites are classified using a form with six categories, ranging from immediate risks to sites where risk is fully controlled.
EGLE estimates that cleaning up all orphan sites will cost taxpayers $13 billion. (Orphan sites are those for which no private party that caused the contamination can be identified or held liable.) Some of the 750-plus immediate risk sites may have liable private parties.
“There’s a staggering number of sites where immediate action is required to protect the public – but doing so would require billions of dollars,” said Liz Kirkwood, executive director of Flow Water Advocates. “First, we’ve got to stop the bleeding by passing Michigan polluter accountability legislation to prevent new contamination. Then we need to provide resources to EGLE to clean up the orphan sites, beginning with those that pose the highest risks.”
Prior to 1995, Michigan law required EGLE’s predecessor to publish an annual list ranking contamination sites according to the risk they posed to public health and the environment. The ranking raised public awareness of sites in their communities, and spurred action by the state. The repeal of Michigan’s polluter pay law that year struck the requirement for the annual list.
The EGLE classification initiative does not rank sites one-by-one, but separates them into clusters, with the sites where immediate action is required posing the greatest risk. To view this cluster, click here.
A related issue of great concern to Flow is the use of “dead zones” to allow polluters and purchasers of contaminated property to limit use of groundwater, essentially writing water that belongs to the public. Together with the Michigan State University Institute of Water Research, Flow published a report in 2024 with recommendations to limit the use of dead zones, also known as institutional controls.
