WAYNE COUNTY, Mich. -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is sending lightly irradiated waste from upstate New York to Texas instead of Michigan after backlash from surrounding communities sparked a lawsuit against the landfill operator.
The Army Corps said it began shipping 6,000 cubic yards of material from a Manhattan Project leftover waste site in Lewiston, N.Y. to a landfill in Texas earlier this month.
Initial plans to dump the material at the Wayne Disposal Landfill in Van Buren Township near Belleville sparked outraged backlash among surrounding communities last summer.
The Army Corps said the lightly radioactive soil and rubble from the Niagara Falls Storage Site, a uranium ore waste facility undergoing a remediation project, is just slightly above natural background radiation levels that people experience daily.
But Wayne County residents reacted strongly to the idea of living near waste leftover from the World War II atomic bomb program. Municipalities sued landfill owner Republic Services and won a temporary restraining order in state court last fall.
The larger lawsuit remains pending.
Republic Services spokesperson James Richardson said the Wayne landfill has not received any of the waste in question since last September and referred further questions to the Army Corps.
Wayne County Executive Warren Evans expressed relief about the redirected shipments in a statement this week.
"Although I certainly do not envy the community that will receive this waste, it was my job to fight for the people of Wayne County and that's what I did to the best of my ability," he said.
The Army Corps said it began shipping it to the Waste Control Specialists facility in Andrews County, Tex., the week of July 14.
"After careful evaluation, the Corps of Engineers approved a contractor-proposed plan to ship material to Texas," said Andrew Kornacki, Army Corps Buffalo District spokesperson.
The decision was made to keep remediation at the Niagara Falls site on schedule, Kornacki said. The Army Corps had initially chosen Michigan because it was the closest state with an adequate landfill and therefore the least expensive transportation option. The waste had to be shipped out of state because New York bans disposal of any radioactive waste.
The Texas Compact Waste Facility is licensed to receive TENORM, or Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material.
Messages to Texas county officials weren't immediately returned.
Legislation introduced last year by Democrats in Lansing would have banned radioactive waste import to Michigan, but it died in the December lame duck session. This June, legislation to disincentivize hazardous waste imports by hiking tipping fees on radioactive material cleared committee in the Democratic-controlled Senate. A companion bill in the Republican-controlled House hasn't moved since it was introduced in April.
Brandon Grysko, an attorney representing municipalities in the lawsuit against Republic Services, called the decision to redirect waste a "clear win" but said the case is continuing to potentially prevent the landfill from accepting other TENORM waste.
"It doesn't necessarily make the case moot or mean that there's not additional restrictions that would be necessary," Grysko said.
The case remains pending before Wayne County Judge Kevin Cox after being briefly removed to federal court last year.
"The law allows for the judge to impose additional restrictions if he finds that there's statutory deficiencies," Grysko said.
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