Bay Horbor has been beset by legal wrangling over the problematic discharges of leachate to the bay. At the legal level the lawyers between state and community have needed to get responsibilities resolved so that technical solutions can be completed. In the following excerpt for the leachate blog readers we are pleased to be able o report that at last the government lawyers are getting the tangle of responsiibilities sorted out. Please visit the original article and source of this quotation. You can do that by following the link below the article.
A newly reached agreement gives Michigan state officials long-term oversight responsibilities for ongoing efforts to control caustic seepage along parts of the Bay Harbor resort’s shoreline.“We’re now kind of turning the page,” said Bob Wagner, a remediation division supervisor with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality.
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The state is assuming the primary oversight role for environmental remedies which the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has filled on an interim basis at Bay Harbor.
The new agreement, executed Thursday, involves the DEQ, Michigan Department of the Attorney General, CMS Land and the related CMS Capital. The agreement, which took about a year to develop, requires the continued operation and maintenance of collection systems that have been put in place along the Lake Michigan shore to capture leachate. Wagner said the EPA reviewed the document prior to its execution.
CMS Land, a former Bay Harbor development partner, has taken responsibility for implementing the environmental remedies, which respond to the seepage of cement kiln dust leachate.
“After seven years of site study and remediation, we’re pleased that we’ve been able to reach an agreement that will protect Little Traverse Bay now and into the future,” said CMS Land area manager Tim Petrosky.
Portions of Bay Harbor and neighboring East Park were developed over deposits of cement kiln dust, a waste product from the years when a cement plant operated along the corridor. Leachate is formed when water comes in contact with the dust.
Seepage of leachate was identified as an issue along several stretches of Bay Harbor shoreline around 2004-05. But measures have since been put in place to control the seepage, and environmental regulators recently have noted that they’re performing effectively.
“All of the standards are being met,” Wagner said. “In fact, it looks beautiful out there. Things have never looked better.”
Because of its caustic nature, health officials have said untreated leachate potentially can damage human skin or tissue coming in contact with it, and that it contains toxic substances such as mercury in concentrations too high for surface water release.
Collection lines designed to capture leachate before it enters surface water are among the features which CMS has put in place in affected areas to control the seepage.
CMS noted that the new agreement calls for the company to install features such as additional collection lines, force mains and provisions for stormwater runoff management.
Petrosky said these measures are meant to increase collection system reliability and redundancy and reduce potential for leachate to migrate beneath collection lines and into surface water.
“While the agreement signifies that much of our remediation work is complete we will remain diligent in our operation of the water collection and treatment systems to ensure all environmental and public safety standards continue to be met,” CMS Land president David Mengebier said.
When asked whether EPA sees much of a role for itself at the Bay Harbor site in the future, agency spokesman Joshua Singer said he’d need to consult with on-site staff before commenting in detail.
“We always work with our state partners,” he noted.
Leachate disposal
— In the past few years, CMS has had collected leachate trucked away from Bay Harbor for disposal, recently relying on a commercial injection well near Johannesburg.
— Since 2011, the company has been transitioning to on-site treatment processes that allow for the liquid to be released into Little Traverse Bay once it’s processed.
— A plant used to treat seepage collected in the East Park area went online last year. A separate plant to handle seepage from the Bay Harbor shoreline went into operation in recent months.
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