Waste from Manhattan Project sites will not be allowed into Wayne Disposal Inc., the Van Buren Township hazardous waste site that has been under fire by anti-nuclear activists and leaders of western Wayne County communities.
Wayne Circuit Court Judge Kevin Cox on Wednesday ordered a permanent injunction against Wayne Disposal, prohibiting the facility from accepting any technologically enhanced naturally occurring radiological material, or “TENORM,” waste from the Niagara Falls Storage Site in New York and any other Manhattan Project cleanup sites.
The public interest “overwhelmingly favors” halting future shipments of TENORM waste, Cox wrote in his order. He said there were irreparable harms brought by past disposal of the waste and said pollution monitoring, engineering controls and emergency response readiness are insufficient.
“As the volume of TENORM waste increases, environmental and adverse public health risk increases; preventing additional shipments is in the public’s best interest,” Cox’s order reads.
Republic Services, which owns Wayne Disposal, will appeal Cox’s decision, Director of External Communications Roman Blahoski said in an email.
“Wayne Disposal, Inc. is a safe, well‑managed facility that is specifically engineered to handle FUSRAP TENORM and other complex waste streams,” he said. “This ruling sets a troubling precedent that undermines protections afforded to interstate commerce and impedes site remediation, as well as the safe and effective long‑term management of these materials for customers in Michigan and throughout the country.”
Wayne Disposal has accepted TENORM waste from at least five of the Manhattan Project sites that the Army Corps of Engineers is remediating. The Corps is charged with cleaning the sites where World War II-era scientists developed the atomic bomb and atomic energy technology.
Community members were outraged in 2024 after learning a shipment of such waste would be coming from the Niagara Falls Storage Site in New York, which was used to store radioactive residue and waste from uranium ore processing that was done to develop the atomic bomb during World War II.
Wayne Disposal also handles other toxic waste such as PCBs. It was granted state approval to expand by 5 million cubic yards in January.
Wayne County communities sue hazardous landfill
Five Wayne County municipalities and a local fire chief sued Wayne Disposal, Inc., claiming they were not adequately warned of TENORM waste shipments and that the material should not be stored in or moved through populous western Wayne County. They said the waste is a nuisance that is only sent to Van Buren Township to save the Army Corps money on shipping.
Lawyers for the communities and landfill met in court early this year. Wayne Disposal attorney Scott Watson said the municipalities failed to show their residents were actually harmed by the waste.
The facility complies with environmental law, he argued, and the communities’ concerns would have been better addressed by the legislature since Congress ordered the Army Corps to clean Manhattan Project sites.
Cox sided with the communities. He said his order “prevents ongoing, irreparable harms that cannot be compensated or unwound later.” He said the likely harms the waste could bring to the landfill’s neighbors outweigh the monetary harms that Republic Services could suffer by not accepting the waste.
The waste could be sent to “sparsely populated arid regions of the country,” Cox said. He warned the TENORM waste presents a “real risk” of accidents and spills into Belleville Lake, the Huron River and Lake Erie, especially during extreme rains.
Hazardous waste proposals stall
State lawmakers from Wayne County have tried to advance legislation blocking out-of-state TENORM waste from being dumped in Michigan, raise the fees for dumping hazardous waste and enact stricter controls on hazardous waste landfills and injection wells.
“While today is a major win, the work is not done,” said state Rep. Reggie Miller, D-Van Buren Township. “Michigan still needs stronger laws and safeguards to ensure that no community is ever put in this position again. We need lasting protections that prioritize people over corporate profits and convenience as well as ensuring transparency, accountability and long-term safety.”
Lawmakers can’t block out-of-state waste from coming to Michigan entirely, according to a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case involving a St. Clair County landfill that was denied approval to accept waste from outside the county.
The justices determined Michigan’s sanitary waste law was unconstitutional because it discriminated against interstate commerce.
ckthompson@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Judge blocks Manhattan Project waste shipments to Wayne County site
Reporting by Carol Thompson, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
