The Poisoning of America

• Share

(8 of 11)

Vance is even more concerned about the future. He fears that the ground water beneath the sandy soil has been polluted, and this will show up later in wells. "It's a perfect setup," he says. "We think what they did with some of the chemicals was just pour 'em out on the ground. Glub, glub, glub." When state and local officials failed to get results, the federal EPA declared a water emergency and took over the cleanup chore. So far, it has spent nearly $1 million and estimates that complete removal of all hazardous wastes at the site could cost more than $12 million. "They couldn't have located that dump in a worse place," says Roland Kasting, a farmer who lives near by. "There's a vast underground reservoir right underneath us. There have to be laws on this chemical waste. It's going to get worse and worse—it's going to be everywhere."

MONTAGUE, MICH.

It took years of local agitation and a lawsuit filed by the State of Michigan, but something now is being done by Hooker Chemical Corp. (which also left contamination at Love Canal) to help dispose of some 1.2 million cu. yds. of chemical waste, drums and contaminated soil on its 880 acres of property on the edge of Montague. The cleanup may be too late to satisfy many residents in the community, a small town (pop. 2,396) of gracious, shaded houses along the shores of White Lake. State water officials estimate that some 20 billion gal. of ground water have been laced with deadly chemical wastes in an underground flow of contamination that is half a mile wide and more than a mile long. Moreover, each heavy rainfall propels some 800 Ibs. of chemical residues daily into the lake, which, in turn, drains into Lake Michigan.

Children used to play in the dump behind the Hooker plant, where rusting drums sometimes leaked a tarry substance as sticky as soft asphalt. The site still contains at least 100 different compounds, many produced by spontaneous reactions among the discarded chemicals. They include hexachlorocyclopentadiene, more conveniently known as C-56. Toxicologists have found a C56 derivative in the flesh of White Lake fish.

As a result of a lawsuit filed by the state, Hooker agreed to build a huge vault to contain its wastes. It has dug a hole 18 ft. deep and 300 yds. long. The bottom and sides of the excavation were formed of coarse beach sand, which would have allowed chemicals to filter down to the aquifer lying 80 ft. or less below the surface. Therefore, Hooker is lining the vault with 10-ft.-thick walls of compacted clay. The vault will rise five stories into the air. "A monument to stupidity," snorts Marion Dawson, a leader in the long fight to force Hooker to clean up its act.

Hooker officials do not deny their mistakes, though they rightly point out that they were made before the hazards were fully understood. The company is spending some $15 million to correct the problems, including sinking a series of "purge" wells designed to draw water from the aquifer, decontaminate it and pipe it back into the ground. Hooker has also built a $100,000 pipeline to carry uncontaminated city water to houses on Blueberry Ridge, where wells are threatened. In addition, the company is paying the monthly water bills of these residents.