Winter 2008
Issue

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Wayne County News

Well Wars in Romulus

EDS Trips Sun Pipeline
in Race to Mount Simon

by Brad van Guilder

Michigan’s first commercial hazardous-waste deep injection wells moved closer to becoming operational when a judge ruled in favor of the Romulus facility’s owners in late June.

Ingham County Circuit Court Judge William E. Collette ruled that Environmental Disposal Systems (EDS), the Birmingham-based owners of the wells, should have exclusive use of an underground geological formation known as Mount Simon for the purpose of injecting hazardous wastes. The ruling negated a May 2003 Michigan Department of Environmental Quality permit issued to Sun Pipeline that allowed them to extract brine from Mount Simon.

Neither company is ready or properly permitted to use Mount Simon at this time but their race for exclusive use of the expansive layer of sandstone could be a deciding factor in a 12-year struggle to keep the EDS wells from becoming fully operational. Community residents, environmental groups, and politicians have used every possible venue to oppose the wells, attending countless public hearings and informational meetings as EDS went through the hazardous-waste permitting process with the DEQ and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Critics of the wells point outthat most of the decisions over the years allowing the EDS project to go forward were issued by the DEQ under the Engler administration, known for its pro-business, anti-environment policies. Some of those decisions were highly questionable – including granting the construction permit despite the recommendation by the Site Review Board that the permit be denied, and allowinga hazardous waste injection well tobe built upon a wetlands area. But with the wells dug and the aboveground facility completely constructed, all EDS now needs is the final go-ahead from the DEQ (see “The (Toxic) Well From Hell,” FTGU, June/July 2004).

Many well opponents are hoping that a Granholm-era DEQ will reverse what they consider years of political cronyism and deny EDS their final operating license. Realizing the high political price to be paid for such an action, those same opponents also hope that something will happen to take the decision out of the governor’s control. One such scenario involves Sun beating EDS to Mount Simon, as the first one there will likely spoil future use by the other.

Judge Collette’s opinion nullifies a Granholm-era DEQ permit to Sun in favor of an earlier, Engler-era permit denial. Judge Collette’s opinion references that initial 2002 decision:

SPMT’s [Sun’s] application was reviewed by the supervisor of wells along with various data submitted by both SPMT and EDS. The supervisor denied the permit for two reasons. First, that SPMT’s drilling would constitute waste because the Mount Simon formation would be compromised as a proper repository for the hazardous waste injection proposed by EDS. Second, that there was a strong potential that SPMT’s activities would generate even more hazardous waste because the various hazardous materials injected into the formation by EDS could be pumped back to the surface by SPMT’s brine recovery operations.

Sun’s operations alone wouldnot constitute a potential hazard. However, EDS’s operations of injecting millions of gallons of liquid hazardous waste into a rock formation 4,000 feet below ground alone by its nature does constitute a potential hazard. Sun’s operations only become a potential hazard if you have already assumed that EDS’s operations are the preferred use of the Mount Simonrock formation.

Sun has appealed Judge Collette’s decision.

Brad van Guilder is the Ecology Center’s Wayne County Organizer.

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