Michigan’s long history of mining and industry built the state’s
wealth, but left a legacy of toxic sites as waste materials were disposed of in
haphazard and dangerous ways. By the 1970’s concern about the impact of
chemicals and other pollutants leaking into waterways and contaminating soils
had begun to grow as incidents threatening human and animal health became
increasingly clear. Individual incidents, from mercury contamination of fish in
the St. Clair River to PCB’s from paper plants in the Kalamazoo River gained
attention as isolated events. But in 1973 a mix up at the Michigan Chemical
Company between bags of animal feed supplements and the fire retardant PBB
(poly-brominated biphenyls) led to the contamination of virtually all of
Michigan’s livestock, and the poisoning of milk, meat and eggs statewide,
leading to almost every person in the state of Michigan alive at that time and
many of their progeny having PBB’s in their bodies.
David Dempsey, whose book “Ruin and Recovery: Michigan’s Rise as
a Conservation Leader”, lays out an excellent history of Michigan’s
environmental challenges and triumphs, provides an in depth look at the
“Chemical Wastelands” in Michigan’s past. “The absence of proof of harm would
characterize a steady stream of chemical crisis through the decade and in the
1980’s, setting up fierce debates between industrial interests and some
government officials, on one hand, and environmental advocates and affected
citizens who were outraged that chemicals were presumed innocent until proven
guilty, on the other hand.” This dynamic
has colored much of the more than forty years since toxic sites and chemical
contamination started to dominate much of the concern about Michigan’s
environmental legacy.
Sierra Club, as a broad-based conservation organization with a
historical focus on protection of wild lands, wildlife and natural resources,
took a while to begin to prioritize toxic contamination and pollution issues.
The impact of DDT on birds brought to broad attention by Rachel Carson in
“Silent Spring” brought resonance to the words of Sierra Club founder John Muir
that “when we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to
everything else in the universe.” During the late 1970’s and 1980’s, Sierra
Club’s Michigan Chapter (then known as the Mackinac Chapter), began to work
with other environmental organizations on lobbying on a range of environmental
and conservation issues in Lansing, and became one of the six founding members
of the Michigan Environmental Council. In addition, in the mid-1980’s the
Chapter’s Detroit Group (now the Southeast Michigan Group) began to emphasize
the importance of working to both prevent and clean up toxic pollution. With
growing emphasis on addressing toxic pollution by advocating for policies in
Lansing and Washington, DC, the Michigan Chapter began to lead on some of the
key issues.
One of the nation’s most important laws, the Comprehensive
Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), known as
Superfund, was created in 1980 to begin to implement the concept of holding
polluters accountable. Those who caused severe toxic contamination would be
made responsible for the clean up of that pollution and the cost of clean-up
through “joint and several liability,” placing the burden on all those
responsible to pay for the cleanup at any site. A tax on chemicals was used to
pay for “orphaned sites”, those where the company responsible was out of
business. The law required that a list of the most severely polluted sites
around the nation be created by the US EPA, and that clean up plans be
developed to protect public health and the environment. Superfund was passed during an era of strong
bipartisan support for environmental laws both in Michigan and at the federal
level in response to growing horror at the nation’s toxic legacy. As the 1980’s rolled around, however, there
was also growing bipartisan resistance being cultivated by industries whose
lobbying power in Lansing and Washington has continued to grow during the past
35 years.
In the mid-1980’s as Superfund began to be deployed around the
nation, including in Michigan where 67 toxic sites were listed as national
priority clean up sites, the importance of proactively identifying pollutants
being emitted or disposed of by industry, instead of waiting until after
contamination occurred, became increasingly clear. The concept of the public’s
Right to Know what chemicals are being emitted or used in their communities
gained in public acceptance. Manufacturers across the country fought against
this concept, recognizing that the more that was publicly disclosed about the
chemical contaminants emitted from or disposed of by their companies, the more
the public would demand reduction and elimination of those chemicals. As the
fight to pass the federal Right to Know amendment to Superfund began in earnest
in the mid-1980’s, Michigan’s Congressional Delegation became critical players
in the fight.
Congressman John Dingell (D-Trenton) was one of the nation’s most
powerful Congressman as the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee of
the US House of Representatives. While Mr. Dingell is rightly recognized for
his long history of leadership on conservation and natural resource issues,
including authoring some of the nation’s most important environmental laws, he
also was a relentless advocate for the interests of Michigan’s and the nation’s
manufacturers. His opposition to regulation of the electric power industry
emissions of the chemical precursors of acid rain led to delays for several
years of laws essential for reducing these well-documented emissions that were
damaging lakes and forests throughout the eastern US and Canada. As the
Committee chairman, Mr. Dingell controlled the agenda and, as the result, the
content of much of the legislation that came before the Energy and Commerce
Committee. In addition, as the dean of the Michigan Delegation, Mr. Dingell
exercised substantial power over the political future of the Michigan Democrats
who served in the House.
The Sierra Club, as the nation’s largest grassroots environmental
organization, brought both a strong presence in Michigan and around the
country, and a well respected lobbying staff in Washington, DC, to the fight to
pass the Right to Know amendment to Superfund.
In an era when the vast majority of communications with Sierra Club’s
several thousand members across the state was by snail mail, with alert letters
printed by print shops and stuffed by hand, and labels reproduced from
typewritten sheets, the Michigan Chapter was able to mobilize an impressive
amount of grassroots pressure on both the Republican and Democratic
representatives who supported environmental protection. Meetings with Members
of Congress, letters to the editor, news releases, editorial board meetings, as
well as strong and smart lobbying by both volunteers and staff, brought about a
critical break in the Democratic delegation from Michigan. When the vote on the
Right to Know amendment came to the floor of the House of Representatives in
1985, the amendment became law by one vote (212 Yay/211 Nay), with seven
Michigan Democratic Congressmen breaking ranks with the chairman to vote yay,
while the remaining eleven Democratic and Republican members voted no. Today,
the Right to Know provisions continue to provide one of the most important
tools to protect emergency responders and to publicly disclose the use of
chemicals that are potentially dangerous to public health throughout the
nation.
Bipartisan support for addressing toxic contamination was
important in the passage of Michigan’s ground-breaking Polluters Pay law in the
1990. Led by then State Senator Lana
Pollack (D-Ann Arbor), Michigan’s Polluter Pay law was designed to bring
similar accountability to Michigan industries. The legislation Pollack sponsored forced the
responsibility for cleaning polluted industrial sites onto the polluters
themselves and generated $100 million for the environment. Sierra Club
volunteers and staff again brought their passion for protecting Michigan people
and communities to bear as part of a broad based coalition joining to advocate
for passage of Polluter Pays. Again, Sierra Club’s grassroots engagement helped
bolster the lobbying efforts of the small number of professional environmental
staff. However, even though Republican members of the legislature were key in
helping to enact the law, by 1995 under Governor John Engler (R-Beal City) the
tide in Michigan had turned aggressively anti-environmental.
Sierra Club leaders have long recognized the importance of
adapting to changing political winds. By 2000, with virtually all of the
legislative work in Lansing focused on defending existing laws, the Michigan
Chapter joined with chapters across the country in initiating a Water Sentinels
Program, headed by Rita Chapman. The program sought to work with communities
and in watersheds to document and advocate through administrative agencies at
the state and federal level for protection of or clean up of the nation’s
waterways. In Michigan, the first project, which was followed for the dozen
years of the Michigan Water Sentinels program, was built around working with
the community members in St. Louis, MI, on demanding permanent clean up of one
of the top five Superfund sites in the nation. The Michigan Chemical
Corporation (later Velsicol Chemical) was the same company that had mistakenly
mixed up PBB and a nutritional additive for livestock.
When Superfund came into existence, state and federal agencies
quickly identified the company’s manufacturing site and landfill as one of the
worst sites in the nation for threats to human health and the environment. In addition to PBB, Michigan Chemical had
produced DDT and other pesticides, and many other chemicals, which by the
1980’s had become a witch’s brew leaking toxic chemicals into the Pine River.
Although the site was listed under Superfund in 1983 and the remedial
construction on the site was supposedly completed in 1992, in reality the clean
up failed and by the late 1990’s the site was again leaking. Sierra Club worked
with many community members in St. Louis and nearby Alma helping to build a
case for agencies to tackle the clean up again but this time remove the waste
entirely. Bringing attention to the plight of the community, including
assisting with community events like a “fishing derby” sponsored by one
community member who insisted that the river should not be written off, Sierra
Club’s Chapman was an important part of moving the process forward.
Sierra Club also participated in a smaller role in advocating for
clean up of the dioxin contamination along the Tittibawassee River, proper
handling of the spoils of clean ups along that river and the Saginaw River, and
clean up of the PCB’s in the Kalamazoo River. Toxic contamination issues
continue to arise through out Michigan. Today, the Huron Valley Group is
leading Sierra Club’s request, in support of local communities around Ann
Arbor, in advocating for inclusion of a toxic plume from the Gelman Company
site that is threatening the water supply for many residents and is approaching
the Huron River. A request was filed in 2016 to the US Environmental Protection
Agency to list the site under Superfund.
Sierra Club’s 125 year history nationwide, and the 50th anniversary
of the Michigan Chapter, have shown the critical value of the staying power of
an organization that can spend decades working on issues. Michigan toxic legacy
is far from being resolved, and the threats from new sources of contamination
and the discovery of previously unidentified toxic sites will unfortunately occupy
much of the work the Michigan Chapter and the Chapter’s regional groups and
committees for years to come. And, the Sierra Club will be here to confront
those challenges.
