Playing Politics With Ann Arbor’s Drinking Water and Massive 1,4 Dioxane Clean-Up?

GROUNDWATER BENEATH  a swath of the city of Ann Arbor is currently contaminated by the suspected carcinogen 1,4 dioxane. The City of Ann Arbor website has a FAQ page dedicated to answering questions about the contamination. Likewise, the Michigan DEQ website has its own “Gelman Sciences, Inc. Site of Contamination Information Page.”

In early September 2013, Ann Arbor City Council passed a resolution co-sponsored by Ward 1 Democrat Sabra Briere and Ward 5 Democrat Chuck Warpehoski. The resolution called on the Michigan DEQ to tighten its standards for the clean up of the 1,4 dioxane plume that has already contaminated one city well on the west side of Ann Arbor.

For years, local environmentalists have complained the clean-up of the three mile long and mile wide plume of suspected cancer causing 1,4 dioxane has been a slow, inefficient and ultimately ineffective process.

Now, hydrology experts suggest the 1,4 dioxane plume is headed toward Barton Pond, which provides 85 percent of the city’s drinking water.

Ann Arbor’s Gelman/Pall 1,4 dioxane disaster is one of the largest groundwater clean-up actions in the United States, and Pall has pumped out over 5 billion gallons of water and removed over 75,000 pounds of 1,4 dioxane.

Between her 2007 election and her 2013 bid for re-election, Ward 1 Council member Sabra Briere has not worked to address the 1,4 dioxane contamination of the groundwater under a portion of the ward she represents.

Quite the opposite; Briere took a campaign donation from Charles Gelman. It was Gelman’s company (which he subsequently sold) that created the environmental disaster and poisoned several aquifers in Scio Township and Ann Arbor.

Gelman then used the courts to fight having to pay for the clean-up of the 1,4 dioxane. The groundwater contamination began in 1976, when dioxane was used as a solvent by Gelman Sciences, Inc., as part of its process of manufacturing medical filters.

The waste stream from this process included wastewater contaminated with 1,4 dioxane. This wastewater was stored in open lagoons and began to enter the soil below and around the lagoons. Gelman Sciences was also found to have illegally pumped water from its lagoons into a nearby marsh. The company also sprayed the contaminated wastewater on its own lawns.

In the November 5th general election, Briere faces Ward 1 Independent candidate Jeffrey Hayner. Hayner has been vocal about his concerns related to water quality in general and the 1,4 dioxane clean-up.

It was shortly after Hayner spoke about the issue in public that Briere co-sponsored a resolution concerning the 1,4 dioxane clean-up.

Briere, herself, suggested the move was motivated more by a desire to win re-election than to craft a resolution with teeth when she said her resolution had been in the works for only “about month” prior to its September introduction.

Former Washtenaw County Commissioner Vivienne Armentrout, who as far back as 2003, worked to motivate city and county officials to deal proactively with the dioxane plume clean-up,  called Briere’s resolution “meaningless” in a comment posted to the AnnArborchronicle.com.

Other critics were quick to suggest the Ward 1 Council member is playing politics with the health and safety of city residents.

“It does ring hollow at election time to create some drama while not dealing with something the city did while they are at the wheel,” pointed out one Ward 1 resident.”

Prior to 2013, Briere (right) hasn’t focused on the cancer-causing agents polluting the groundwater in her ward. In a 2009 video made when she ran for re-election, she talks about the river, and coming up with a “plan for its use,” as well as its “clean-up.”

In the video, she does not mention the 1,4 dioxane plume or that it was headed toward Barton Pond, where our city 85 percent of its drinking water.

The resolution, which she co-sponsored with Ward 5 Council member Chuck Warpehoski, “directs the city administrator and city staff to explore other actions available to the city, including but not limited to meeting with and petitioning the EPA to aid in setting appropriate cleanup criteria for 1,4-dioxane in Michigan, including the Pall-Gelman plume and without site specific criteria for the Pall-Gelman plume, and to cooperate with other local units of government to ensure protection of public health and the environment.”

A former EPA staffer suggested that the proposed resolution reads as though “all the phrases related to dioxane that someone could think of were thrown together without much thought. It requests multiple actions without acknowledging the past history.”

Vince Caruso is a member of the county’s Coalition for Action on Remediation of Dioxane (CARD), and a long-time activist who has tried mightily to get local officials to take an interest in this issue. He commented in response to the AnnArbor.com article about Briere and Warpehoski’s resolution.

Caruso says, “The resolution is something after years of inaction by the city, but it would have been more effective to have done a better job vetting the resolution. It has some errors and really doesn’t ask for much. Would have helped to have reached out to others in the effort.”

Along with her claim that her 1,4 dioxane resolution had been in the works “for over a month,” over the course of the time she was meeting with city staff, Briere neglected to communicate with Council colleagues concerning her desire to bring forth this resolution.

“Sabra learned the game from Hieftje,” explained one exasperated Council member. “Take all the credit and none of the blame. This is a serious and complicated problem that requires a careful and multi-faceted approach. She’s playing politics big time, and offering a seat-of-the-pants plan to help her re-election campaign.”

In fact, Ward 2 Council member Jane Lumm expressed gratitude for Briere’s efforts, but dismay at Briere’s lack of communication about the complex environmental issue.

The fact that Briere neglected to let all of her Council colleagues know that she was engaged in extensive discussions with city staff on the issue of the 1,4 dioxane clean-up, suggests to some that she is using the issue to boost her re-election efforts.

Vince Caruso sums up the dire situation that Ann Arbor faces: “It is going to be kind of hard to be Michigan’s ‘Cool City’ when you have no drinking water.”

If (says Briere) and when (says CARD member Caruso and others) the Gelman/Pall plume hits Barton Pond, that’s exactly what Ann Arbor residents will face.

Roger Rayle is the co-chair of the group Scio Residents for Safe Water, and has been working to raise public awareness about the 1,4 dioxane disaster for over 20 years. He had a hand in the resolution brought forward by Sabra Briere.

In a 2011 WEMU interview, Rayle speaks frankly about the 1,4 dioxane threat to Barton Pond, as well as problems with the clean-up effort. He questions whether the state of Michigan can and will enforce court-mandated clean-up activities.

“Pall has removed more 1,4 dioxane then they said was down there,” explains Rayle, in his interview with WEMU reporter David Fair, “but Pall wants to cut back drastically on its monitoring. We need more public awareness about this, and more people involved. We need to start to be outraged that this has been allowed to happen.”

In summer 2013 Pall Life Sciences announced the company was shuttering its offices in Ann Arbor. Pall officials claim the 1,4 dioxane clean-up effort will continue, unabated.

Locals, including Roger Rayle, remain skeptical.