LIVONIA, Mich. – The state of Michigan and Ford Motor Company have settled a ground contamination case that Local 4 brought to viewers 18 months ago.
It's been dubbed the Boston Beacon Project, and it involves contamination at the Livonia transmission plant. While the state has settled, it's anything but settled with the neighbors.
The state reached a consent agreement in which Ford will pay the state $45,000 for costs related to investigating the environmental mess. But residents in the Alden Sub Association said they weren't even aware of the agreement, and they have their own legal case against Ford that's not settled.
Lawns on Wadsworth, Beacon and Boston Post streets and Belden Court have monitoring wells, which testing crews use to check water quality.
Dennis Tenniswood is the Neighborhood Association president, and he's deeply concerned about the contamination.
Ford installed dozens of wells that go down nearly 25 feet into the ground, checking the soil and ventilation for the chemicals vinyl chloride, used to make plastics, and trichloroethelene, a grease solvent they stopped using a generation ago.
Ford discovered the problem in 2014 and spent the last couple of years trying to assess the distance the chemicals moved into the Alden subdivision east of the plant.
Tenniswood waters his lawn with tap water, fearing a well would be disastrous.
Ford put out a statement Tuesday about the subdivision, saying, "We will continue to work closely with the city of Livonia and the MDEQ to address the issue. Importantly, all samples collected to date show no health risks to residents, and drinking water is not at risk."
Click here to visit the Ford Livonia Boston Beacon Project website.
You can watch Rod Meloni's full story in the video posted above.