7,300 Challenges

Across the street from us, so to speak, sits the derelict, toxic, McLouth Steel site. It’s been an ugly eyesore since forever, tagged with a massive clean-up bill estimated to range over $100 million.*

And, Michigan has all but run out of bucks for Spick & Span, degreaser, etc.

Plus, it’s sad to say, that the McLouth Steel site is only an itty-bitty bit of the problem. Because there are over 7,300 toxic sites throughout the state.

Well, even I can cipher out a problem and I’m guessing we have 7,300 of ‘em.

Here’s the story... part of it, at least:

Michigan has 7,300 toxic sites. Money for cleanups is almost gone, Jim Malewitz, bridgemi.com, 17 Jan 2018.


BELLAIRE — Meet Tom and Sarah Hudson. The couple, both in their 60s, call themselves “the arrow people.” It’s a lighthearted description of their toxic reality: A slow but steadily moving industrial solvent plume is threatening the drinking water beneath their slice of paradise in northwest Michigan.

The Hudsons, retirees who split their time between here and Rochester, can’t see the contamination beneath the forested hills. But its trajectory looks unmistakable, according to a map drawn by state environmental regulators and illustrated with an arrow aimed at the Hudsons’ patch along Windy Hill Road in Bellaire, a town of about 1,000 about 30 miles west of Gaylord.

Please go here for the whole story.

*As of today, as I understand it, negotiations are underway between the potential buyer of the 188-acre site, Crown Enterprises, a real estate and development firm controlled by the Moroun family (owners of the Detroit International Bridge Co Inc. [the Ambassador Bridge] and several shipping, trucking and railroad companies) -- the Department of Justice and the EPA. According to a recent Detroit Free Press article:

"The Morouns are trying to limit their potential liability for clean-up costs and it's basically like a covenant the EPA will not sue them," said Nick Schroeck, director of the Transnational Environmental Law Clinic and assistant clinical professor at the Wayne State University Law School."

The Coasters - Poison Ivy - 1959