The Conservancy Initiative is happy to report that Advanced Disposal Services (ADS) has asked the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) to place its controversial water discharge permit applications “on-hold”. These applications were requesting permission to discharge up to 100,000 gallons per day of leachate and other PFAS impacted waters into our area’s only cold-water trout stream. We believe ADS was surprised by the overwhelming opposition to these permit applications and has placed them “on hold” to avoid the permits being denied.
One bright spot in the landfill’s permit applications is that they may finally be recognizing they have a significant leachate issue. As we have discussed in a previous posting, the leachate issue is the root cause of many of their compliance and excess emission/odor issues. The fact that ADS has been exploring alternative options for increasing their capacity to dispose of leachate might indicate they are finally attempting to address the issue. In the future, we would encourage the landfill to work with the community, as opposed to working around the community, when developing a solution.
The Conservancy Initiative will continue to monitor the status of these permit applications and other regulatory activities. Recall, the opposition to these permit applications began when the permit applications were discovered by The Conservancy Initiative during routine monitoring of EGLE’s public databases. We do not believe EGLE should allow these permit applications to be “on-hold’ indefinitely. The permit applications should either be processed or returned/rejected. The Conservancy Initiative will advocate for the applications to be returned to ADS.
One issue that came to light during our investigation is the PFAS impacted stormwater pond located on the southeast section of the landfill property. The pond was impacted by fire retardants from a fire in 2016. Although the pond was isolated to prevent discharge to Johnson Creek, we believe the pond is not lined and the PFAS impacted water has not been addressed since 2016. EGLE records have been obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request and show that virtually no communications been conducted with EGLE regarding remediation of this pond. Although we do not believe the material in the pond presents an immediate danger, the remediation of the pond should be fairly simple (pump and haul off-site, sample soil, etc.), but maybe expensive. Allowing issues like this pond to fester is unacceptable and demonstrates ADS’s lack of commitment to sustainability. The Conservancy Initiative will be elevating this issue with EGLE and to demand closure.