A pricy plume

Some 3,000 of the polluted sites are likely “orphans,” meaning the original polluter is long gone — bankrupt perhaps, leaving taxpayers solely responsible for the cleanup.

“That’s basically what this site is. It’s a taxpayer burden and a legacy we all live with,” said Len Mankowski, a private geologist contracted with DEQ.

He was speaking to 120 people gathered in a hotel ballroom in Bellaire last month, eager to learn the latest about Antrim County’s contamination. Residents studied maps placed along several wooden tables — and some pointed out where the unstoppable plume intersected their property.

“Look at the crowd here. I thought they’d have free booze or something,” said David Roberts, 84, who owns a house not far from the plume’s reach but said he wasn’t too worried. “I think a lot of people think: If I drank one glass of water, I’m dead. It’s not that kind of thing.”

First produced in the United States in 1925, TCE served many purposes — surgery anesthetic, dry cleaning solvent, metal parts cleaner — before experts fully understood its health hazards. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared the solvent a human carcinogen in 2011, the culmination of 30 years of research. Low-level doses over several years can trigger health problems, as can exposure to high concentrations over short periods, research shows.

The solvent is not breaking down beneath Antrim County, meaning it will linger for the foreseeable future. TCE concentrations in some places should eventually fall, however, as the particles spread out.

In Mancelona, a blue-collar village southeast of Bellaire, an auto parts manufacturer used TCE in its vapor degreasers. Beginning in 1947, Mount Clemens Industries — later known as Wickes Manufacturing — used the chemical for two decades. Michigan had few environmental laws at the time.

Herb Tipton, a member of the Mancelona Historical Society who worked at the plant for four decades beginning in the 1960s, said workers used the solvent to clean metal parts. It proved effective, and there was little reason to believe it was dangerous, he said.

“It would be as clean as a baby’s behind when it got done,” Tipton told Bridge. “But it was very expensive. You didn’t use much.”

TCE-laced waste was ultimately dumped onto the ground and into unlined lagoons, environmental regulators say, allowing the solvent to seep through the soil and into the groundwater. Over time, it moved across Antrim County, affecting hundreds of drinking water wells.

Dura Automotive last operated the plant, which closed in 2009. Now it’s an empty lot where weeds poked through a blanket of snow on an afternoon last month.

The DEQ is now tracking the plume and supplying affected residents with untainted water. In response to the contamination, the state created the Mancelona Area Water and Sewer Authority, which the draws groundwater from zones unaffected by the plume, and it has also paid for more locals hook up to what has has become Michigan’s farthest-reaching water system. The agency also provides provided bottled water for residents waiting for hookups.

More than 120 monitoring wells in the area help experts map the TCE’s underground path and track how levels of contamination change over time. Michigan generally considers drinking water safe from TCE if it stays below a threshold of 5 parts-per-billion, the equivalent of 5 gallons of the solvent dissolved into 1 billion gallons of water. But the state is picking up the tab for water switches in Antrim County as soon as monitors detect a trace of TCE in their wells.

Tom Hudson wishes the government could switch his water supply before monitors detected any contamination, particularly since experts can predict where it might travel next (“In the automotive business, we tried to fix the defects before they occur. Here, they want them to occur.”)

But he understands that’s how the bureaucracy works, and he is generally pleased with DEQ’s attentiveness. For instance: the agency quickly agreed to start testing the Hudson’s wells four times in the coming year — rather than the typical two — after the couple raised concerns about the safety of would-be visiting family members.

Peter Bigford, CEO of Shanty Creek Resorts said he trusts the state’s performance in Antrim County, where he recently received some welcome news: The plume now appears to be hooking away from water wells that supply the resorts and municipal users. With 600 employees, the tourist destination and is the largest employer in a county of just 23,000.

“I don’t think you could ask the DEQ to do a better job,” Bigford said.

But how long will the effort last as money runs dry from the Clean Michigan Initiative?

Adams, the DEQ geologist in Antrim County, said her project, one of the state’s most serious, is surviving better than most. She’s managed to hold onto a balance of $8.3 million for a project that has already cost more than three times that sum. It’s hard to know how long that will last — perhaps a few years as the agency continues to extend the municipal water system and investigate the risks to the nearby water wells and the Cedar River.

For now, those efforts are running on borrowed time.

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