On March 25, 2026, an operator at GFL's Arbor Hills Landfill intentionally bypassed the facility's PFAS pretreatment system for four hours to perform unscheduled maintenance. This action released a highly concentrated "slug discharge" of untreated leachate into the Northville Sanitary Sewer, with PFOS levels far exceeding allowable limits. The slug discharge was heading to the Ypsilanti Community Utility Authority (YCUA).

Figure 1 - PFOS Concentration of the treated leachate discharged to the Northville Township sanitary sewer. The chart shows the massive slug of PFOS discharged when the treatment system was bypassed.

YCUA cannot remove PFAS chemicals and relies on its industrial users to remove PFAS to an allowable level at their treatment facilities before discharging into the sanitary sewer system. On May 14th, several days before this Arbor Hills bypass event, YCUA received a violation notice from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) for discharging treated water into the Rouge River that exceeded the state's water quality standards for various PFAS chemicals. The likely cause of this violation was higher-than-expected PFAS concentrations originating from an industrial user such as Arbor Hills.

While this specific incident was thankfully caught and is being addressed, it raises alarming questions for the community.

GFL and YCUA were both monitoring the discharge from Arbor Hills on the day of the bypass—yet GFL’s testing failed to detect the massive PFAS discharge. Was this merely a coincidence, or was GFL's sampling deliberately timed to miss the bypass event?
Because this wastewater stream is normally not monitored for PFAS, The Conservancy Initiative (TCI) questions how many times this bypass valve has been secretly opened in the past without detection. Was the May 14th violation at YCUA caused by a similar event?

TCI remains committed to uncovering these practices and advocating for the strict, continuous oversight necessary to protect the Rouge River and our surrounding environment. Attached is a letter from YCUA to GFL summarizing the bypass event.

Discovering this event was difficult and required Freedom of Information requests. These events should not be secrets; they should be readily available to the public. Washtenaw County Commissioners must be aware of these events before considering siting a NEW LANDFILL in Washtenaw County.