News of nuclear waste coming to a disposal facility in southeast Michigan is raising questions about how much say the public has in hazardous waste management in their communities.
Experts say the material isn’t dangerous, but is being treated with caution anyway. But residents and lawmakers are still opposed, citing concerns about safety and long standing environmental injustice in the county.
Here’s what you should know about the radioactive material coming to a Michigan hazardous waste disposal facility.
Where is it coming from?
The material has been sitting at a site north of Niagara Falls, New York for decades. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is moving this material as part of the Formerly Utilized Sites Remedial Action Program, or “FUSRAP”.
That program cleans up sites contaminated with radiation from nuclear weapons development. It’s managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, who oversee 21 sites in eight states.
Brent LaSpada, the site manager for the corps, said the army is well-equipped to handle the waste.
“It's a bread and butter project for the Corps of Engineers,” he said.
What waste is coming to Michigan?
Wayne Disposal in Van Buren Township will receive 6,000 cubic yards of soil and concrete contaminated with very low levels of radiation. The radiation comes from TENORM, Technologically-Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials. In this case, those materials are mostly radium, thorium and uranium, LaSpada said.
Previous reports said shipments would also include 4,000 gallons of contaminated groundwater. That will stay in New York for treatment, LaSpada said.
Why is it coming here? Why can’t it stay where it is?
Moving this material is part of a federal effort to cleanup waste from nuclear weapons development. Remediating those sites means removing contaminated materials and shipping them to properly-licensed hazardous waste disposal facilities.
Consolidating the waste in fewer locations makes it easier to track and manage, LaSpada said.
But there aren’t many hazardous waste facilities qualified to take that kind of waste. Wayne Disposal is one of very few and it’s the closest facility to the Niagara site.
“In the vein of being as safe as we can and being as efficient as we can, you're always going to select the site that is closest to if it's qualified to take [the material],” LaSpada said.
That’s why the waste is coming to Michigan, according to the corps and Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE). The material will spend the least amount of time on the road and cost less to transport.
How dangerous is the material?
The International Atomic Energy Agency classifies the material coming to Wayne Disposal in Van Buren County as “very low level waste.” That means it still requires some regulation, but isn’t as dangerous as other forms of waste.
Testing at the Niagara site indicated that the material is less than 50 picocuries per gram, LaSpada said in an email.
A picocurie is one trillionth of a curie, which measures how much radiation an element releases as it decays.
Steven Krahn, a nuclear environmental engineer at Vanderbilt University, said the waste is not radioactive enough to be dangerous to anyone standing near it.
“The radioactivity associated with naturally occurring radioactive materials is only a threat to human health and safety if it is ingested or inhaled,” he said. “So just being physically near it does not result in high doses of radiation.”
The danger comes if the radioactive compounds from the waste leach into groundwater.
How can I trust that this material will be kept safe?
Wayne Disposal is subject to state and federal regulations regarding hazardous waste. Its licenses to handle and store hazardous waste – including nuclear waste – are current. The facility was violation-free for six years before one was issued in August 2024, according to state records. “The site has a good compliance history,” a spokesperson for EGLE said in an email.
The waste will be stored in underground cells lined with over seven feet of clay, sand and liners, according to Republic Services, the company that owns the disposal facility. The cells come equipped with leak detection systems and will be monitored regularly.
In addition to these regulations, the corps audits and inspects facilities that they move FUSRAP materials to. The corps last inspected Wayne Disposal in 2022, LaSpada said.
When will this material start arriving in Michigan?
The corps began removing material from the Niagara site in late August, according to local news reports. Shipments will start coming to Michigan this month, LaSpada said.
The corps estimated that there are 640 truckloads of material in total. By sending 25 trucks per week, the material should be done shipping by early 2025. Shipments will depend on weather conditions, LaSpada said.
How will it be transported?
The soil and concrete will be transported in lined trucks that will be decontaminated before they leave the Niagara site, LaSpada said. They will travel along a route already approved by the U.S. Department of Transportation to get to Michigan.
The trucks will take a predetermined route that avoids neighborhoods, said Kevin McNamara, the Van Buren township supervisor. That route was negotiated between the facility and Van Buren Township and has been in use for over a decade, he said in a previous interview.
Who decides what happens to this waste?
On the federal level, most nuclear waste is regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That includes waste produced by nuclear reactors. FUSRAP materials are an exception and are overseen by the corps and the U.S. EPA.
Michigan does not have a department dedicated solely to handling nuclear waste. That responsibility falls under EGLE and its Materials Management Division.
Hazardous waste facilities’ are subject to a license review process, which includes public review. Residents can sign up for email notifications for when the state permit will next be up for review on EGLE’s website.
Why were residents not notified?
The short answer is that the facility, township, county and state are not required to notify residents. Krahn said that’s likely because the facility is already licensed to handle hazardous waste.
“If you are licensed to receive that material, there are no specific informing requirements necessary to execute actions which you are approved to do under your license,” he said.
EGLE and local officials were notified of this project, Republic Services said in a statement.
McNamara said it’s not the township’s job to announce every shipment the facility accepts.
“I don't see a purpose to having to tell everybody every single waste stream that comes into that facility,” he said. “If [people] want to know, we'd be happy to help them get that information from the state of Michigan. It’s easily FOIA-able.”
Wayne County Commission Chair Alisha Bell said that needs to change, at least for the more hazardous materials.
“I don’t think it’s a stretch,” she said. The Wayne County Commission was not notified of the incoming shipments, she said. But the corps, McNamara and Republic Services said representatives from Wayne County were present for meetings about the project in years past.
Why is this facility in a residential area?
Ford originally owned the site that is now Wayne Disposal, according to EGLE. It was most likely part of the Willow Run bomber plant. It started as a dumping ground for waste from the factory, McNamara said, although Michigan Public was unable to confirm this.
Before the bomber plant, the area was undeveloped farm land not considered close to Detroit. Now, it and seven other hazardous waste facilities operate across Wayne County. That’s partly because there are so many industrial sites in the Detroit area that produce a lot of hazardous waste.
But Wayne County is also the most densely populated county in the state. Bell said that’s enough reason to send hazardous waste somewhere more remote.
“Of course, no one wants this in their backyard,” she said. “But there should be some pause as to why this is even in our county.”
And with the Great Lakes so close, hazardous waste shouldn’t be coming to Michigan at all, she said. She suggested increasing fees for incoming shipments, to make it less “economical” for hazardous material to come to Michigan.
What’s next?
Representative Debbie Dingell (D-Ann Arbor) and Wayne County Executive Warren Evans are hosting a town hall meeting about this issue on Wednesday, Sept. 4 at 6 p.m. The meeting will be held in-person at Wayne Community College’s Ted Scott Campus in Belleville. It is unclear if it will be streamed online. Representatives from Wayne Disposal, EGLE, the U.S. EPA and U.S. Department of Transportation will be present.
