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$$PLAIN_TEXT_PREVIEW$$
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No not that lab leak… Where do you get your news? From my newsletter? Hedge fund controlled papers? Billionaire owned papers/newsrooms/radio/or god help you, cable. Or are you more of a sleuthing twitter/twitch streams/podcasts/independent media/local news kind of person?
There are no wrong answers (side eyes). Do you get your news or does your news get you? One thing is for damn sure. Thank god for local newsrooms. The story I am going to lay out here would never have been told if it were not for a robust local newsroom, the Ann Arbor News which is archived in the Ann Arbor District Library Community Collections. A2 News was bought by Advanced Publications in 2013 and combined with many other local papers into one online news source. As all of our news sources are funneled into the control of one of a dozen enormous mass media corporations, we lose out on deep and rigorous reporting. What is slipping through the cracks? I bet it is on TikTok. Find and support some independent media before they are all owned by the same jabroni who also manages your IRA, lent you your mortgage, your car loan, and you/your kids educational loans.
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There is an Open Secret Below Your Feet in Ann Arbor
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This is a map of the Gelman 1,4 Dioxane Plume which has been spreading through groundwater and aquifers in the Ann Arbor area since the late 1960s. 1,4 Dioxane is a chemical invented by the Dow Chemical Company and classified by the EPA as “likely to be carcinogenic to humans by all routes of exposure.” It also causes nausea, drowsiness, headaches, and irritation to the respiratory system. It's estimated the company used 850,000 pounds of the toxic chemical between 1966 and 1986, with most being discharged to soil, surface water and groundwater through seepage lagoons, land spray irrigation, and direct discharges (literally the sprinkler system) at the company’s S. Wagner site. After nearly 50 years, the threat of acute contamination of Barton Pond, Ann Arbor’s main drinking water source, is only worsening. The issue and clean-up of the site has languished in the courts, allowing the plume to migrate further and further.
How did this all begin? |
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Charles Gelman, born in 1931, has a typical Ann Arbor start-up story. He started his company as a hobby in his basement as a graduate student at the University of Michigan. His degree was in Public Health, the first irony of the story. He came to Ann Arbor to continue work designing filtration systems as well as air and water pollutant detection systems, the second irony in this story. Look at that picture. To me, it screams “MANIFEST DESTINY”. This story means so much to me, not only because I live in A2, but because this man’s dream to be helpful to society went so wrong. No good deed goes unpunished. I imagine his medical filters saved a lot of lives, but how many lives will be ruined from their production? Such is the paradox we all live under in global hyper capitalism.
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1969117 - Gelman Lagoon A2 News |
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The first mention of Gelman’s company in the Ann Arbor District Libraries archive on the subject is from 1968. They received a “B” rating, even though their unlined lagoon was overflowing with organic waste and likely Dioxane. At the time, little was known about the chemical, Dow, the manufacturer did not list it as toxic and there was no explicit regulation of it.
The next year the state must have been more thorough. They gave the company an “E” rating. Neighbors complained about the smell. In 1971, Gelman installed some water filters, clearing up the organic waste which was causing the smell and filthy looking water and everyone moved on. Gelman continued their manufacturing process and continued secretly releasing Dioxane into the environment. Until…
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In 1984, U-M grad student Dan Bicknell was swimming in the Third Sister Lake with some friends. He noticed a discharge pipe flowing into the lake, which he recalled was supposed to be naturally spring fed. Just a stone’s throw away from lake, on the Gelman property, he noticed acres of spray irrigation towers. “They were intended to neutralize Dioxane in wastewater through uptake in the turfgrass. But due to a slope…all of the water really just ran off into streams into this creek.” said Bicknell in an interview with WEMU. Intrigued, he took a water sample, ran it in the lab, and found it contained 1,4 Dioxane. He submitted this data to the Department of Environmental Quality. Their response to him when given the data was that, “this finding isn’t worth a toot.” Bicknell persevered. He showed up at a state meeting with the Gelman plant. This is when it came out Gelmen had installed an illegal drain under the parking lot, discharging Dioxane-laden wastewater into the creek.
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20210525 6:42 AM - Third Sister Lake |
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Shockingly, despite the illegal activity, the State of Michigan took no action. This did not sit right with Bicknell. He knew neighbors in the area had drinking water wells and urged them to petition to have their wells tested. “When they came back with like 100,000 ppb in a drinking water well, and as you know the EPA advisory is 3.5, you knew that there was severe damage. And that’s when it cascaded and all the other homes around here were sampled and put on public water.”
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Ted Huston, Rosemary Rader and their children, Eric, 6, and Marisa, 3, use bottled water for cooking, drinking and brushing their teeth in Ann Arbor. A2 News |
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19930309 - Gelman Sciences Water Treatment Facility, A2 News |
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When a company knowingly, illegally, desecrates the environment with pollutants, who is the best entity to be responsible for clean-up? Probably not the same company. However that is pretty much what has happened in the years since Bicknell’s discovery. It took Gelman until 1986 to stop adding new Dioxane to the environment. The site was saturated with 850,000 lbs of the chemical, which continued to seeps freely into groundwater.
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20210525 6:44 AM - Monitoring Well near the S. Wagner site. |
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Through the 1990s, Gelman attempted various clean-ups which have been criticized as inadequate from many local and state constituencies. Their main treatment has been focused on collecting groundwater in wells, treating it and pumping the less potent (there is still Dioxane left after the process) water into Honey Creek which empties into the Huron River. A practice that continues today.
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20210525 7:14 AM - Honey Creek where it joins the Huron River |
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The only real pressure on the situation has come from, unsurprisingly, locals such as Roger Rayle and the Scio Residents for Safe Water. They have been pressuring both state and local officials for nearly 30 years to do more to stop the spread of the plume. The aquifer underneath Ann Arbor will likely never be restored to its pristine condition.
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199709? - Roger Rayle inspects a tributary near the S. Wagner site. A2 News |
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20210525 6:33 AM - A waste water Lagoon at the S. Wagner Site. |
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Gelman Sciences Inc was bought out by the Pall Corporation in 1997. In 2015 Pall was acquired by the Danaher Corporation. Earlier this month, Washtenaw County Circuit Judge Tim Connors ordered a new clean-up plan for the site. The order, if it makes it through appeals, will implement additional clean-ups and monitoring activities, and allow local groups to seek a Superfund Cleanup without penalties.
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20210525 7:11 AM - A Wise Tree on the banks of Honey Creek |
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And now… Like this wise tree on the banks of Honey Creek… We wait… See you next week, -Niki
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Newsletter edited by the indelible David Pratt
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