Wednesday, January 19, 2005 JEREMIAH STETTLER THE SAGINAW NEWS
State Sen. Tony Stamas and Rep. John A. Moolenaar have appealed to the highest levels of state government to keep a "hazardous waste facility" label off mid-Michigan homes.
The pair met with Lt. Gov. John Cherry on Tuesday to seek reprieve from a designation that affects more than 2,000 households along the Tittabawassee River and threatens thousands more in Midland County.
"I want to ensure that the community's concerns are being addressed and that we are being treated fairly by the DEQ," said Moolenaar, a Midland Republican.
Moolenaar criticized the state Department of Environmental Quality this week for slapping nearly every property in the Tittabawassee River floodplain with a "hazardous waste facility" label in June 2003.
He said the state must not place that blanket designation over parts of Midland as well.
The "facility" designation is attached to properties with contamination levels above state standards. In mid-Michigan's case, the label refers to properties with high levels of dioxin -- a harmful, combustion-borne pollutant.
The label sets restrictions on how people may use their land and requires property owners to disclose the contamination to potential buyers.
Stamas and Moolenaar confirmed this week that they are writing a bill to redefine the term "facility." They have not yet developed language for the law.
Moolenaar hopes to develop a standard that would limit the "facility" designation to properties, and pieces of properties, where regulators can |verify contamination.
"I don't believe we should unfairly burden or fault someone for something that was not of their own doing," Moolenaar said.
Depending on how the law is written, Stamas and Moolenaar potentially could lift the seller's disclosure requirement for many properties along the river.
Greg McClelland, attorney for the Michigan Association of Realtors and drafter of the state's disclosure laws, said sellers must report contamination only if they know it exists.
Without soil testing and without the state's "facility" designation, the owner is under no obligation to disclose possible pollution.
"It is based on what the seller knows," McClelland said. "If the seller knows there is dioxin on their property, they need to disclose it."
DEQ spokesman Robert McCann said lawmakers have not consulted his department about redefining the term "facility." He said the proposal seems to sidestep the real issue: that properties downstream of Dow Chemical Co. are contaminated with dioxin.
"The bottom line, if you call it a facility or not, is that the contamination is there," he said. "It seems irresponsible to say that it's not contaminated just because it's not a facility anymore."
Kathy Henry, chief litigant in a dioxin-related lawsuit against Dow, said the proposal is dishonest.
"These Midland politicians are absolutely shameful," she said. "I would think the law is in place to protect the public. To draft a bill so that real estate owners and Realtors could defraud potential buyers by failing to disclose problems on property issues is insane."
Cherry declined comment on his discussion with Stamas and Moolenaar, saying he will reserve all statements until after negotiations between the state and Dow concerning dioxin cleanup are complete. v
Jeremiah Stettler is a staff writer at the Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9685.
© 2005 Saginaw News.
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