According to my former hometown paper, The News Herald, perhaps the most controversial environmental story in the Detroit area since the era of Superfund may have come to an unbelievably abrupt close.
Though environmental waste disposal wells exist elsewhere around the state, the location of this one: near a business park, Metro Airport, and within half-a-mile of mature neighborhoods really rallied the residents to take a NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) stance against the project. This would involve injecting liquid toxins nearly 20,000 feet down into bedrock for disposal.
Proponents claimed this would solve the long-standing problem of toxicants being above ground and polluting the surrounding air. But critics were quick to point out no consideration was given to the long-term effects. All one has to do is take a look at the infamous Love Canal saga near Niagara Falls, cited as the forerunner to the modern environmental movement.
Long story short, waste barrels were improperly buried & sealed at the site in 1957. Barely 20 years later, the toxins swept through the soil and began contaminating everything in their way. By the time 1981 rolled around, 90% of the neighborhood had pulled up stakes. Thirty years after that, the neighborhood has still not recovered and likely never will.
Just because toxins may be buried more than 19,000 feet further down than the canal barrels were, does not mean the land won't suffer effects in several thousand years. God willing, the human race will still exist then, and will still need basic health principles in effect to keep surviving.
The local story here dominated for fifteen years as meetings were held, protests were organized, long-time politicians were hacked to pieces, and fear built. A potential victory a few years ago was suddenly reversed, supposedly at the pleasure of one of the oil companies. The dread began.
Then, voila: a spill (and above-ground, no less). The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality shut down the site, and now... the operating company may no longer be in business. All the meetings and protests may have served to prove a point.
Of course, this doesn't end the problem of what to do with these toxins. A solution may not be found in our lifetimes, in spite of our best efforts. That solution is badly needed, as we know.
But short-term only lasts short-term. What's forgotten is long-term ramifications. If we want survival, we want our home base to survive. Whether this was just a natural happening, or thanks to the prayers of those vehmently opposed to this, score a small victory for our planet. We have to help it, as it has helped us for thousands of years.
