1,4‑Dioxane Groundwater Pollution Plume in Ann Arbor and Scio Township

After years of dump­ing dan­ger­ous man­u­fac­tur­ing bio­prod­uct, 1,4‑dioxane in an unlined lagoon on the back edge of Gel­man Sci­ences (now Pall Corp) prop­er­ty, the chem­i­cal was dis­cov­ered off­site in a near­by lake. One year after its dis­cov­ery (1985),
Washt­e­naw Coun­ty Health Board found 1,4‑dioxane in 30 res­i­den­tial wells.

Since its dis­cov­ery the pol­lu­tant has been slow­ly spread­ing through­out Scio Town­ship and West­ern Ann Arbor via ground­wa­ter. Cur­rent­ly the impact area is approx­i­mate­ly 3 square miles of Ann Arbor and Scio Town­ship. This has result­ed in the clo­sure of 124 pri­vate wells, one munic­i­pal well, and pro­hi­bi­tion of ground­wa­ter uses in a sec­tion of Ann Arbor threat­en­ing drink­ing water infra­struc­ture in this sec­tion of Washt­e­naw County.

Legal action has been tak­en against Gel­man Sci­ences and under a Cir­cuit Court Con­sent Judge­ment, Gel­man agreed to a $1 mil­lion set­tle­ment and to begin the cleanup process. The reme­di­a­tion effort is still ongo­ing and has con­sist­ed of pump-and-treat with release of low-con­cen­tra­tions of 1,4‑dioxane into a trib­u­tary of the Huron RIv­er — Hon­ey Creek. The Con­sent Judge­ment has been amend­ed sev­er­al times to adjust the allow­able res­i­den­tial ground­wa­ter con­cen­tra­tion from 3 ppb (parts per bil­lion) to 85 ppb. This lev­el was low­ered to 7.2 ppb by Michi­gan Depart­ment of Envi­ron­ment, Great Lakes and Ener­gy (EGLE) in 2016. Over the years the com­pa­ny has faced sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic and gov­ern­men­tal pres­sure to adhere to stricter cleanup stan­dards and con­tin­ue to expand mon­i­tor­ing as the plume spreads.

Addi­tion­al legal action has been tak­en by sev­er­al oth­er par­ties. Scio Town­ship, the City of Ann Arbor, Washt­e­naw Coun­ty, and Huron Riv­er Water­shed Coun­cil all have joined the law­suit ini­ti­at­ed by EGLE against Gel­man Sci­ences request to amend the Con­sent Judge­ment for the fourth time. In 2021, EGLE sent a let­ter to the EPA to reini­ti­ate the assess­ment of the Gel­man site for the Super­fund Nation­al Pri­or­i­ties List (NPL). As of March 2024 the EPA has pro­posed to add the site to the NPL and no fur­ther updates have been provided.

1. What role might socioe­co­nom­ic sta­tus play in res­i­dents’ abil­i­ty to mit­i­gate risks asso­ci­at­ed with diox­ane con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed water?
2. What oth­er water relat­ed inequities can you con­nect with this case, were the res­i­dents or the issue treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly, was the respon­si­ble par­ty treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly, why?
3. What respon­si­bil­i­ties do envi­ron­men­tal engi­neers and cor­po­ra­tions have to ensure equi­table out­comes in address­ing envi­ron­men­tal contamination?
4. How can future reme­di­a­tion efforts be designed to pri­or­i­tize equi­ty and inclu­siv­i­ty for all affect­ed pop­u­la­tions? And how can engi­neers pro­mote an equi­table and inclu­sive process for han­dling these issues?

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9835328/

https://www.epa.gov/mi/gelman-sciences#:~:text=March%202024&text=U.S.%20Environmental%20Protection%20Agency%20has,March%207%20and%20May%206.