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06/15/2007
Residents upset over proposed disposal wellWastewater from cleanup would be injected in well
Some Alba residents made signs for a public hearing on a proposed disposal well in Antrim County. “If we don’t speak out, I feel that they’re just going to walk all over us and bring it in,” said Tammy Fuller, who lives about a mile from the proposed well site. ALBA — Folks in Alba say they don't want their rural area used as a dumping ground for another community's environmental woes. Residents of the tiny northern Michigan town came out in force to criticize and complain to state and federal environmental officials during a public hearing about a proposed disposal well near the intersection of Alba Highway and Patterson Road in Antrim County. Wastewater from the cleanup of the Bay Harbor area along Little Traverse Bay in Emmet County will be injected into underground rock formations, if permits are issued by state and federal authorities. "We're tired of people coming in here and telling us you're going to poke a hole in our ground and there's nothing we can do about it,” said Bob Marsh of Alba, whose comments prompted loud applause from more than 100 people at the public hearing Wednesday night at Alba High School. Beeland Group, a subsidiary of CMS Energy, applied to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to build and operate a deep injection well. The company was an investor in the Bay Harbor development — an area previously occupied by a cement factory — and is on the hook for a $93 million cleanup project from kiln dust pollutants seeping into Little Traverse Bay. "How dare you people ask the town of Alba to assume the problem of Bay Harbor? It is their problem. Let them keep it,” said Michele Jewell of Alba. Some of those in attendance suggested Alba was chosen as a disposal site because its residents aren't as affluent as those with contaminated shoreline property along Lake Michigan. "Where's the environmental justice in this? The wealthy people in Bay Harbor have a problem. Instead of dealing with that problem in their town, they want to bring it to our lower-income community,” said Cindy Pointe, who lives nearby the proposed well site. Tim Petrosky, CMS area manager, said the company ships wastewater to Grand Traverse County's septage treatment plant and to an injection well in Johannesburg in Otsego County. CMS has applied to the state to build a treatment plant at the contamination site, but also wants an injection well in Antrim County, he said. "The location was the closest to the Little Traverse Bay cleanup project with the appropriate geology to safely develop the well,” Petrosky said. He said if CMS gains approval to build a treatment plant in Emmet County, the disposal well in Alba would become a back-up method. 
Bob Marsh, of Alba, speaks at a public hearing on a proposed disposal well in Antrim County. He apologized to state and federal officials for a hostile crowd, but said people there do not want to accept an environmental risk from another community. Many people at the hearing questioned the potential harm to local groundwater, irrigation systems for area farmers and the Jordan River watershed. "You (state and federal regulators) are the ones who issued permits to build on kiln dust. Sorry if my confidence is a little shaky in you through this process when you say it's safe,” said Chris Christensen, a commissioner from neighboring Charlevoix County who said the Jordan River must be protected now and in the future. William Bates, EPA environmental scientist, said the agency is set to approve the federal well permit, unless new information surfaces during the comment period, which lasts through June 27. The state's permit review likely will be completed this year, said Rick Henderson, DEQ supervisor. Documents regarding this case can be viewed at Mancelona Township Library.
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