Last month, the Gelman plume became a candidate for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program. Governor Gretchen Whitmer sent the EPA a letter recommending this designation of the dioxane-contaminated site, which is located in parts of Ann Arbor and Scio Townships.
To better understand the Gelman plume and what this Superfund status could mean, Stateside spoke with Brian Steglitz, the public services area administrator for the city of Ann Arbor, and Bill Shuster, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Wayne State University.
How has the Gelman plume come to be?
The Gelman plume came as a result of Gelman Sciences’ manufacturing operations from the 1960s through the 1980s, when the contamination was discovered. Years of the medical filter manufacturer’s waste handling led to the 1,4-dioxane plume that has spread and contaminated the groundwater in Ann Arbor and Scio Townships.
When Gelman Sciences started operations in 1966, “1,4-dioxane was just seen as a commonly used solvent, and this happened to work particularly well for what Gelman did,” Shuster said. “But as a society, as a culture, it really calls into environmental justice and how that's affecting us. I was born in 1965, and we're seeing the effects very strongly throughout the generations. And, this is a burden.”
Decades of remediation efforts have followed the contamination’s discovery in 1985. Steglitz estimated that the plume is one of the most tested plumes in the U.S.
What research is being done now?
“Right now, our biggest concern is the migration of the plume towards the Huron River, upstream of our intake,” Steglitz said. “That's where we're primarily focused, and ensuring that the Huron River doesn't get impacted by the migration of dioxane, because then that would jeopardize the majority of our water supply, which is about 80% that comes from the Huron.”
Shuster noted how important it is to identify the geometry of the plume in conducting research on how to proceed with cleanup efforts. He pointed to the work of Glen Hood’s lab at Wayne State where they’re using a native grapevine to detect contamination “in the tissue of the plant and the insects that feed on that plant.” Shuster said that this tracing process is often less costly and more accurate at refining where the contamination is than dropping wells and establishing monitoring.
What would Superfund status mean? What’s next?
The Superfund process is a long, deliberate process, and Steglitz said it will likely take five to 10 years before the Gelman plume is granted Superfund status.
“There's a process where they score the site, and you need to meet a scoring metric in order to be considered for listing, and there's a public comment period. So that's the portion of the process we're in right now. And I think we would anticipate that it would maybe take the better part of a year before the final listing takes place again,” Steglitz said.
Following the public comment period, there is a period of investigation. Until this process is completed, Steglitz said current efforts to contain the plume will be maintained by the state. Additionally, Shuster mentioned how much of the burden falls on local communities and municipalities to provide the data necessary to create an argument for joining the National Priorities List.
In the meantime, Steglitz detailed the improvements the city is making on their water treatment plant and the city’s efforts to better understand the risks at play with this plume.
“For us, it's really important to understand, is the plume migrating towards our water supply? What can we do to potentially prevent that from happening? And, in the worst case scenario, if we did have to deal with it, what does treatment look like?”
To hear more about the Gelman plume and how it’s being handled, listen to the Stateside Podcast.
GUESTS ON THIS EPISODE:
- Dr. Bill Shuster, chair of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Wayne State
- Brian Steglitz, public services area administrator for the City of Ann Arbor
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