Nuclear waste has to go somewhere, but residents and lawmakers in Wayne County are asking, “Why here?”
Lawmakers are hosting a town hall meeting tonight to discuss public concerns about that waste.
The answer seems simple: Wayne Disposal in Van Buren Township is one of the few facilities in the country that is qualified to dispose of radioactive waste. And it’s the closest qualified facility to the waste’s previous home, the Niagara Falls Storage Site in New York.
That site is managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program (FUSRAP). That project cleans up contaminated materials left from nuclear weapons manufacturing at 21 sites in 8 states.
Michigan law does not require low-level radioactive waste to go to a hazardous waste facility, but the corps says they’re taking extra precautions. Brent LaSpada, the project manager for the Niagara site, said that’s typical of FUSRAP projects.
“Certainly we appreciate the concerns of the public, from the site to the disposal and everybody in between. It's huge for us,” he said. “Safety is the backbone of everything we do. And that's why we leave no stone unturned.”
The radioactivity of the waste is so low it isn’t dangerous to stand next to, and isn’t any more hazardous than what the average person would be exposed to in a year, LaSpada said.
This kind of waste is known as “technologically enhanced naturally occurring materials.” The International Atomic Energy Agency classifies it as “very low level waste,” meaning that it still requires some regulation, but isn’t as dangerous as many other forms of waste.
But there’s still some risk involved in transporting and storing it. Steven Krahn, a nuclear environmental engineer at Vanderbilt University, said the danger comes if the radioactive compounds from the waste leach into groundwater.
“Just being physically near it does not result in high doses of radiation,” he said.
The waste will be transported in lined trucks along U.S. Department of Transportation-approved routes, LaSpada said. Once at the Wayne Disposal facility, the material will be stored in clay-lined cells and monitored regularly.
Township supervisor Kevin McNamara is confident the facility is well-run.
“I just want to make sure that everybody understands that this is a secure landfill,” he said. “It is a very safe landfill.”
But there are still questions about why a large hazardous waste facility is in a semi-residential area in the first place. Wayne County Commission Chair Alisha Bell said the county is the wrong place for hazardous waste, no matter how minimal the risk.
“Of course, no one wants this in their backyard. I understand that,” she said. “However, when you're going through a densely populated community like Wayne County, there should be some pause as to why this is even in our county.”
Michigan’s proximity to the Great Lakes means hazardous waste shouldn’t come to Michigan, period, she said.
Wayne County is home to half of Michigan’s 14 hazardous waste disposal facilities. That’s partly because there are so many industrial sites in the Detroit area that produce a lot of hazardous waste.
That includes the Wayne Disposal site. It was originally part of the Ford-owned Willow Run bomber plant.
But recent studies show that factors like income and race are also big predictors for where landfills and waste facilities operate.
Today, neighborhoods within a 1-mile radius of Wayne Disposal are 45% Black and 32% low-income.
That environmental justice component is part of why she is opposed to the waste coming to Wayne, Bell said. The commission wants to be notified when hazardous waste comes through the county, she said.
McNamara, the township supervisor, disagreed.
“I don't see a purpose to having to tell everybody every single waste stream that comes into that landfill,” he said. “If they want to know, we'd be happy to help them get that information from the state of Michigan. It’s easily FOIA-able.”
Facilities like Wayne Disposal aren’t legally required to notify surrounding communities about waste they take in. Krahn, the nuclear environmental engineer, said that’s because the facility is already licensed to handle it.
“Simply performing actions for which you are authorized is not something that kicks in public notice requirements,” he said.
Clearly communicating risk to the public is a big challenge in managing nuclear waste, he said. But he also said talking to communities near hazardous waste facilities is a necessary conversation.
Republic Services, the company that owns the Wayne facility, is open to discussing better communication with the public, a spokesperson said. A representative from the company will be at the town hall, which starts at 6 p.m. at Wayne Community College's Ted Scott campus in Belleville.
