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Northville fighting landfill on multiple fronts
Township fighting landfill plan to discharge into Johnson Creek
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Dave Horan of The Conservancy Initiative
Agroup of Northville residents have long been concerned the Arbor Hills Landfill has had a detrimental impact on local air quality. Now they are raising the alarm that the landfill could also soon be impacting local waterways, including one of Wayne County’s last remaining trout streams.
The Conservancy Initiative (TCI), founded five years ago by a group of concerned Northville residents, has discovered through a freedom of information request that the landfill’s owner, Advanced Disposal Services (ADS), has applied for state permits to treat leachate on site and then discharge it into nearby Johnson Creek. Leachate is the contaminated water that has percolated through the landfill or compost material.
According to TCI, the landfill currently sends the leachate off-site to be treated and disposed at either commercial facilities or through the Great Lakes Water Authority. TCI is opposing the change, and has contacted state and local governmental officials.
“This is all about ADS saving money with no regard for local natural resources,” said Dave Horan, a TCI board member, who lives in Steeple Chase, a subdivision of nearly 275 homes near Six Mile and Ridge.
Northville Township officials are also opposing the permit request, according to Northville Township Supervisor Bob Nix, who said they are taking a “zero tolerance” stance on the issue.
By Lonnie Huhman and Kurt Kuban | Photos by Bryan Mitchell
Nix said he has been in regular contact with the township’s state representatives regarding issues with the landfill. Last fall, the township hired the lobbying firm Midwest Strategy at a cost of $3,000 per month to influence legislation that will impact landfills in the state. It is the township’s intention to prevent ADS from building a second landfill on the north side of Six Mile.
Because the landfill is located in Salem Township (and Washtenaw County), Northville doesn’t really have a place at the table when it comes to decision making about Arbor Hills.
A series of bills were introduced in the Michigan House of Representatives at the end of May (HB 5812 through HB5817) that will rewrite the way the state regulates solid waste, landfills, recycling and waste management. As of press time, the bills were being debated in the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Committee. Nix was scheduled to address the committee in Lansing on June 9.
“Our hope is to have a bordering community consent provision included in the legislation that would give us some say when it comes to preventing the expansion of the landfill,” Nix said. “We wanted to get in front of this and make sure our voice is being heard.”
‘ECOLOGICALLY UNIQUE’
According to the documents obtained by TCI, Arbor Hills wants to discharge up to 15,000 gallons a day of leachate to Johnson Creek from a lined pond at the compost facility located north of Six Mile Road. The second permit would allow ADS to treat up to 80,000 gallons a day of leachate from the East Arbor Hills Landfill on-site and discharge the treated leachate to Johnson Creek.
According to TCI, leachate from the closed East Arbor Hills Landfill has historically contained PCBs and therefore is collected separately from the adjacent and active West Arbor Hills Landfill leachate.
TCI isn’t the only organization that thinks treated landfill leachate shouldn’t be discharged into Johnson Creek, which is located in the Rouge River watershed.
According to the Friends of the Rouge, Johnson Creek is a delicate stream with healthy trout and aquatic insect populations – both indicators of high quality stream conditions. The group wants to make sure the permitting process is scrutinized and all pertinent factors are taken into account.
“Considering the delicate and ecologically unique nature of Johnson Creek as a cold water tributary, the
discharge temperature and also the flow volume should be considered in the permitting process and not just the leachate pollutants,” said FOTR Executive Director Marie McCormick, who noted the organization will be monitoring the process.
NOXIOUS ODORS
This is just the latest development in TCI’s five-year fight against Arbor Hills. The group’s two primary goals are to make sure the landfill is abiding by existing environmental laws and to prevent any expansion. Michigan Pollution Emergency Alerting System.
With up to 2,000 complaints in 2018 and 3,000 in 2019, TCI members said they want action.
Scott Miller, supervisor of EGLE’s Air Quality Division/Jackson District Office), said his department is taking aggressive actions to assure ADS is implementing necessary measures to resolve ongoing violations and odor issues and is pursuing escalated enforcement.
“EGLE understands the community’s concerns and frustrations and resolution of these issues at the landfill remains a top
Bob Nix
Northville Township Supervisor
Horan said residents who live downwind of the landfill have been dealing with “noxious odors” from the site for as long as he’s lived in Steeple Chase since 2012.
“If the wind is blowing, I can always smell it. And when it’s bad, it’s bad,” Horan said.
In 2018, TCI developed an on-line system to report odors called The Odor Report, which has streamlined the odor reporting and response process by immediately alerting personnel at the landfill, Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) and various community leaders with every odor complaint.
TCI members said prior to The Odor Report, residents needed to contact the landfill directly and/or use the State of priority for the department,” Miller said. “We continue to respond to hundreds of odor complaints filed by residents near the landfill.”
He said EGLE staff continues to conduct on-site inspections and area odor evaluations of the landfill and the adjacent landfill gas-to-energy plant owned by Arbor Hills Energy LLC (AHE), a subsidiary of the Fortistar Methane Group.
“EGLE and EPA conducted air monitoring at the landfill and in the surrounding area on several occasions in 2019,” Miller said. “Monitoring included Hydrogen Sulfide, Methane, and Volatile Organic Compounds. Although some areas of elevated H2S (Hydrogen Sulfide) were noted on the landfill.”
Arbor Hills has been cited more than 20 times for violating state environmental laws stemming from odor issues since 2019.
In May, TCI sent a letter to the Michigan Attorney General’s office requesting they take legal actions to force the operators of the landfill to accept the corrective actions developed by EGLE and impose penalties commensurate with the many years of noncompliance.
Making matters more complicated is the fact that ADS is in the process of merging with Waste Management. Miller said agreements and associated responsibilities EGLE has reached with
ADS would be transferred to the new owners.
“EGLE is finalizing a settlement agreement that outlines a long-term compliance plan to control fugitive landfill gas emissions, but the company has not yet agreed to these necessary measures,” Miller said.
In addition to odor concerns, EGLE will also continue to review the Arbor Hills PFAS investigation activities to define the potential source and extent of the PFAS, which have been detected on site. PFAS are a group of man-made chemicals that can lead to adverse human health effects, according to the EPA.
We tried contacting Advanced Disposal Services officials through multiple emails but never received a response for this story.
New Realities
Northville businesses adapt to survive, help others
Story by Alex Lundberg | Photos by Bryan Mitchell
City of Northville officials have decided to shut down traffic on downtown streets until the end of October in an effort to help local businesses survive the pandemic. The Northville City Council, with a unanimous vote via a June 5 special Zoom meeting, approved closing E. Main and N. Center streets to vehicle traffic, which will allow for on-street dining and shopping.
Lori Ward, executive director of the Northville DDA, said the plan to close the streets came from a careful survey of downtown businesses. The DDA had been in contact with restaurant, retail and business owners in preparation for a June reopening. The organization was looking for input on whether or not to close downtown streets to vehicle traffic. The idea behind closing the streets would allow for wide walkways for pedestrians, curbside pickup and spaced, on-street seating for the restaurants.
After the long lockdown, businesses are going to need help getting going again.
“This is going to give them an opportunity to make up for some of the lost chairs,” she said, speaking of the mandatory restrictions for seating density finding the best way around. He also said the DDA would have to make some kind of provision for cleanup and trash collection for the weekends, when regular city workers are off.
(Top) Vehicle traffic will not be allowed on Main and Center streets this summer. (Above) Lisa Schon at the Northville Farmers Market. She has developed a website for market vendors.
inside restaurants. “This will allow them to spread diners out and maintain social distance.”
City Manager Pat Sullivan expressed concerns about how the closure of the streets would affect traffic through the city. As more and more of the city’s residents go back to work, those commuters will inevitably start cutting through neighborhoods
Several council members mentioned that this is a work in progress and adjustments will certainly need to be made as time goes on. DDA Chairman Shawn Riley said an alternate plan, to close those streets on the weekends only, wouldn’t do enough.
“Without closing the streets completely, the restaurants would not survive,” he said. “We have to do everything in our power to see these businesses survive.”
OPENING UP
This should be welcome news to downtown merchants, who have been struggling and are just starting to reopen as Michigan’s Stay Home, Stay Safe order starts to loosen.
The Dancing Eye Gallery, which has been selling local and Michigan artist-made handcrafts for 25 years, closed their doors on March 23 to comply with state orders.
“We were cognizant of social distancing, but we wanted to comply with the order,” said owner Theresa Schierloh. “We did not want to lose our business license.”
She also didn’t want to lose her business, so she shifted her operation to online sales with shipping or curbside pickup. It’s caused her to sell in a new way.
“Doing business over the phone and online has been tough, it requires more work,” Schierloh said. “It’s exciting.
We’re happy to do it, happy to be in business. I feel like we’ve made lemonade out of lemons.”
Her normal workforce of eight has been cut down to five, counting her, and she makes a point of doing the bulk of her work in the mornings before opening so that she can have just one staffer on duty and make social distancing easier to accomplish. Another regular store employee is using the disrupted schedule in a different way, building a new website for the store.
She’s also worked to take advantage of her “good location” at 101 N. Center Street.
“We’ve put a lot of work into our window displays,” Shierloh said. “We did one celebrating the 2020 grads and another for Bigfoot, the champion of social distancing. We’re trying to lighten the mood.”
To some extent, it has. She said people wave at her when she’s changing the window displays and are happy to see a business surviving and operating under these extreme circumstances. “People are happy to see us open. I think they were worried about businesses downtown.”
A HELPING HAND
Some Northville institutions have also had to change. The Northville Farmers’ Market is operating on limited hours, banned dogs and asking people to not socialize or linger as they shop for items they are asked not to touch.
Lisa Schon is a big fan of the market and was concerned about what was going to happen when the opening was delayed in early May. She said the market filled a very important need in the community.
“I saw that some of the vendors were doing sales,” Schon said. “Some of them delivered, some did pickups. There was no coordination.”
She came up with the idea of creating a central directory to help. She and her husband, Manfred, put together a free website, http://up2go.com/ local-food. The site connects residents with the farmers’ market vendors they have come to know.
The website is simple. Participating local farms and businesses, including Donahee Farms, Gracias’ Greenhouse, and Lonesome Pines Beef are listed alphabetically with links to their websites, email addresses and phone numbers. The listings also indicate whether each business offers
Northville resident and COO of R. M. Wright Company Mike Hamzey (left) and sales manager Mark Lambert. Photo courtesy of Mike Hamzey.
shipping, delivery or pickup. The only functionality on the site is a filter where visitors can search by product or category. The site offers no option to shop or buy.
Since it was launched in May, food product companies have joined the listing. It could change further as time goes on.
“The site will become what it needs to become as people
Dancing Eye Gallery owner Theresa Schierloh.
use it,” Schon said. “Having this in place will be helpful later if there is a second surge of the coronavirus.”
Large corporations have also come to the rescue. Home improvement manufacturer Masco Corporation, for example, repurposed its community outreach budget for 2020 to benefit nonprofits impacted by the virus. The company, headquartered on Haggerty Road, will put $1 million towards programs that provide food and housing relief near its operations in the U.S. and Canada.
Masco has been a benefactor of many local non-profits, including the Living and Learning Enrichment Center.
“We are proud to be able to support our communities with critical funding, and we are immensely grateful to the nonprofits that are working tirelessly to meet the increasing needs of those affected by this crisis,” said Masco President and CEO Keith Allman.
While businesses are figuring out how to ramp back up, some never quit. Northville’s Michael Hamzey, COO of RM Wright Co., said he had a sit-down meeting with his employees the Friday before the first statewide stay-at-home order was imposed by the governor. Because the company was a distributor for manufacturers making parts for ventilators being made by GM and Ford, their 27 employees were considered essential for the supply of critical infrastructure.
“We told them if they got ill, we would cover them,” Hamzey said. “We also told them that we were going to follow the guidelines laid out by the Centers for Disease Control.”
Everyone has to wear masks, surfaces are regularly cleaned, door handles are wiped down and the employee restroom is professionally cleaned. Workers’ temperatures are taken regularly, and employees stopped eating together. Social distancing is relatively easy to achieve in the 15,000-squarefoot warehouse, and it is seriously enforced.
“Fortunately, nobody has become ill. Also, we’ve had two outside visitors in two months,” Hamzey said. “We have our mail dropped off. We’ve done a good job of minimizing contact, and I think part of our success is that our employees are keeping the practices when they go home.”
He said the guidelines the company has followed have worked out so far and the company can continue that way indefinitely.
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