May Letter to Attorney General and Community Leaders

[Click Here for a PDF version of this letter]

Dana Nessel, Attorney General

G. Mennen Williams Building
525 W. Ottawa Street
P.O. Box 30212
Lansing, MI 48909

Distribution: D. Nessel (MDAG), N. Gordon (MDAG), L. Clark (EGLE), M. Dolehanty (EGLE), J, Schinderle (EGLE), S. Miller (EGLE), L. Bean (EGLE), R. Nix, F. Shadko, M. Banner, S. Frush, S. Heath, M. Hermann, C. Roosen, M. Koleszar, D. Polehanki, S. Shinks, E. Pratt, T. Eggermont, B. Turnbull, K. Heise, M. Gallegher, C. Jankowski, D. Kindig (ADS), A. Testa (ADS)

Re: An Open Letter Regarding the Arbor Hills Landfill

Dear Ms. Nessel,

Thank you for your consideration during this challenging time. We at The Conservancy Initiative recognize that the Covid-19 pandemic is of utmost importance and while our request is unrelated, we are hoping that you may be able to follow-up with us.

There remain thousands of people in our community negatively impacted by the Arbor Hills Landfill on a continuing basis, which residents must endure through the shelter-in-place order. Several months have passed since we began writing to request your assistance with this issue. We have received responses from many of the community leaders that we have reached out to, but have not heard back from the Attorney General’s office. In addition, many grass root members of our organization have written personal notes to let you know how the landfill is impacting their families, but have only received form letters with very generic language as responses which appear to be without due consideration.

Per our prior outreach, The Conservancy Initiative (TCI) requests the Attorney General’s office take prompt legal actions to ensure Advance Disposal Services accepts the corrective actions proposed by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) and imposes penalties commensurate with the many years of non-compliant operation of the Arbor Hills Landfill. If this is not possible, we would like to understand why the Attorney General’s office will not support the enforcement of EGLE’s violation notices and requests for corrective action.

Our community continues to suffer from noxious odors while Advanced Disposal is regularly found to be the source of these odors and in violation (4 Violations issued to date in 2020, 17 Violations issued in 2019) of the landfill regulations established to protect the environment and the surrounding public. TCI supports EGLE as a committed resource to develop the necessary corrective actions to address the on-going issues at Arbor Hills, though it appears EGLE has little leverage to ensure corrective actions are taken or chance of reaching a settlement without your office bringing legal actions. TCI is concerned that ADS may be attempting to stall the negotiations (e.g., until their merger with Waste Management is complete which may force the process to start new).

In addition to the well-documented non-compliance events and the continuing community odors, we were recently notified that Arbor Hills has been added to EGLE’s MPART list of PFAS contamination sites. Although the investigation is on-going, it is likely this contamination is the result of the on-going operational short-comings at the Arbor Hills Landfill.

To help illustrate the continuing problem, and to arm community leaders with data to address the problem, The Conservancy Initiative (TCI) publishes periodic reports detailing the landfill’s odor statistics. Additional statistics are available at https://www.ConservancyInitiative.org.

Data is scrubbed to remove invalid complaints (this is rare), multiple complaints made from the same household on the same day, and complaints that can be attributed to other sources (e.g., Consumers Energy). The table above shows a large percentage… — Data is scrubbed to remove invalid complaints (this is rare), multiple complaints made from the same household on the same day, and complaints that can be attributed to other sources (e.g., Consumers Energy). The table above shows a large percentage of complainants only make one complaint per month

Odor Complaints - Complaints are common when wind is light and from West to South West. Complaints track the wind conditions as well as the Weather Channel. Note that the best performance is about 100 complaints per month - UNACCEPTABLE. Pdf version… — Odor Complaints - Complaints are common when wind is light and from West to South West. Complaints track the wind conditions as well as the Weather Channel. Note that the best performance is about 100 complaints per month - UNACCEPTABLE. Pdf version of chart

Problematic Days - Everyone has different sensitivity to odors. Problematic days are days when 15 or more households complain. There is little doubt the odor is severe when 15 or more households spontaneously take the time to register a complaint.&n… — Problematic Days - Everyone has different sensitivity to odors. Problematic days are days when 15 or more households complain. There is little doubt the odor is severe when 15 or more households spontaneously take the time to register a complaint. Pdf version of chart

I look forward to your response and would be happy to discuss further with you and / or your staff.