BELLEVILLE, Mich. – In a very spirited press conference, activists and elected officials from the local, state, and national levels emphasized that the state of Michigan is not everyone else’s dumping ground.
Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, State Rep. Reggie Miller, and State Sen. Darrin Camilleri were among a host of elected officials and activists who voiced their strong opposition to the EGLE’s notice of renewal and expansion of Wayne Disposal’s permits in Belleville.
“We first learned about it as a community last August,” said Jeneen Rippey, the co-founder of “Michigan Against Atomic Waste”, who brought more than two dozen protesters to the midday press conference.
Rippey has lived in Van Buren Township for 20 years and says that the expansion poses a danger not just to her family and community, but it has a ripple effect throughout the Great Lakes.
“We sit right on top of the Huron River Watershed,” Rippey said. “We are so close to Belleville Lake, which feeds the Detroit River, which feeds Lake Erie, which feeds Lake Ontario, and we have just spent a lot of time over the last year to learn and to research, and find out what is really happening.”
“I don’t think you could find a worse place for a facility like this,” Chris Donley, a member of Michigan Against Atomic Waste, said. “They’re burying Manhattan nuclear waste near a population of 367,000 people, surrounded by multiple schools right on the shores of the Huron River Watershed, which is a very vulnerable waterway.”
Miller and Camilleri have bills aimed at making it harder and more expensive for other states to dump their waste in Michigan. They are both currently stalled in the state legislature.
“Unfortunately, when you’re dealing with the state legislature, you’ve got people who may not necessarily feel the same way as you do because it’s not their community,” Camilleri said. “This is not a partisan issue; we should be joining hands, not necessarily fighting each other over the toxic waste that’s coming into Michigan.
Dingell, whose late husband John Dingell introduced some of the earliest environmental legislation in 1970, gave a passionate plea to stop Michigan from being a dumping ground while demanding that Republicans at the state level come to the table.
“We are not the trash capital of the United States of America,” she said. “We do not want to be the trash capital of America.”
At one point, she accidentally let fly with an expletive when she implored Republicans to “come to the f---ing table.” She says that other us states, as well as Canada, need to find other places to dump their waste in what has been a years-long battle.
The landfill was set to get contaminated soil and groundwater from the WWII-era Manhattan Project.
In 2023, Wayne Disposal was going to receive hazardous waste from the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
Both shipments were eventually diverted to other facilities outside of Michigan.
“We have eight schools within close proximity of the landfill, Rippey said. “We have elder care facilities. We have daycare facilities, and we deserve all these people who deserve to know that they are safe.”
For residents, like Chris Donley, it all comes down to protecting this community for now and the future.
“We’re hoping that EGLE will live up to their mission statement and protect the people, the lakes, and the waters of Michigan, as they’re required to do,” he said. “And not continue rubber stamping permits for a polluter and someone bringing out-of-state nuclear waste into our county.”