BELLEVILLE, Mich. (WXYZ) — Today, the fight over toxic waste being stored in a Wayne County community enters its next phase. People who live near Wayne Disposal in Belleville will be able to voice their concerns about the storage of more toxic waste near their homes and businesses.
Watch Brittany's video report below
But now, the landfill is asking to grow even bigger. The request has been met with serious backlash. In June, we spoke with several people who opposed the expansion.
Watch our previous coverage
We spoke to more residents ahead of today's meeting. Residents planning to attend plan to band together once again in saying no to Wayne Disposal's proposed expansion. This proposed expansion won't widen the landfill's footprint, but it'll be taller, adding 225 feet of height.
Residents are not happy about that either.
"This is going to be a monument of this area. It’s going to be visible for miles and miles, from our neighborhoods, our businesses," said Chris Donley.
Chris Donley is one of the people behind the Michigan Against Atomic Waste group. It’s got about 1200 members, and many plan on having their voices heard at tonight’s meeting.
The landfill owners — Wayne Disposal’s general manager — said expanding upward is the best way to maximize space. They say the waste brought in will be low-activity radioactive waste. Reps say the site doesn’t accept more harmful low-level radioactive and nuclear waste. It’ll be manufacturing byproduct, with the majority brought in from out of state.
The facility says it’s waste they’re equipped to handle. Our cameras got a look at how they test and dispose of materials – checking on property air and groundwater. Facility reps say all water that falls on their grounds is treated before it leaves. But residents say they want those same tests run on land outside the landfill property – and conducted by someone outside of Wayne Disposal.
"Leak detection, ground water monitoring, radon monitoring, perimeter air monitoring, all of it is showing that there is no exposure," said Sylwia Scott, an Area Environmental Compliance Manager with Republic Services.
"I can tell you that all the groundwater sampling that we've done, we've proven time and again that there's no issues," said Bill Carr, the General Manager with Wayne Disposal.
"We want vigorous, outside independent testing of our air and water, we are very concerned about the long-term responsibility of this," Donley said. "These liners have a life span, they will break down, that place will leak over time, whose going to be cleaning that up?"
That meeting starts at 5 p.m. tonight, at the Ted Scott Campus of Wayne County Community College. It should be a packed house.
