Senate OKs controversial 'facility' bill

Friday, December 09, 2005 JEREMIAH STETTLER THE SAGINAW NEWS

The Senate has approved sweeping changes to the state's environmental cleanup laws that will demand testing, not modeling, to identify polluted properties.

In a decision split largely across partisan lines, the Senate voted 20-16 this week to prohibit state regulators from labeling any property a contaminated "facility" without doing sampling to prove it.

The bill would severely restrict the Department of Environmental Quality's ability to designate areas in need of environmental cleanup.

Instead of modeling the path of pollution based on a speckling of data points, regulators would have to test each property before including it in a cleanup zone.

Leonard Heinzman, a supporter of the bill and founder of the citizen's coalition Tittabawassee River Voice, said the decision represents a victory for homeowners. The state no longer will have the power to blanket a region with a "facility" designation, as it did along the Tittabawassee River, he said.

"The DEQ is not going to be able to declare a whole area a facility," Heinzman said. "They are going to have to pause in the future. That is what we hoped to accomplish."

The bill, which the House supported with the Senate's revisions late Wednesday, still allows property owners to add their properties to a "facility" without testing. They must put their request in writing and receive state approval.

The bill also retains a money-back provision for accused polluters who prove themselves innocent. The law would give companies the right to test any property that is included in a cleanup zone without sampling. If the samples come up clean, the company could have its costs refunded by the state.

Sen. James Barcia of Bay City was the only Democrat to vote in favor of the bill. Despite some reservations with the language, he said the bill promotes due process and private property rights -- two principles he holds dear.

"I supported what I believe is an imperfect bill in the Senate because I feel strongly that there has to be a mechanism for homeowners to confirm that their property is contaminated with dioxin and therefore can be labeled a facility," he said. "Without this recourse, they would have to accept the DEQ assertion that they are a facility even without testing."

The decision strikes a nerve with the environmental watchdog group Lone Tree Council, which launched a $1,500 radio campaign this week to defeat the bill. With a sudden vote by the Senate and almost a week of ads remaining, the group now is calling on Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm for a veto.

Lone Tree spokeswoman Michelle Hurd Riddick said the bill protects the polluter at the public's expense.

She believes it could have profound implications along the Tittabawassee River, where Dow Chemical Co. is under state mandate to clean up dioxin contamination. It could slow the process or force the state to share in the financial burden, she said.

"It places a financial burden on the taxpayers of Michigan for pollution they did not cause," Hurd Riddick said.

"Dow Chemical caused this contamination. It has an obligation, a contractual agreement in their operating license, to bear the burden and cost of determining the scope of contamination. That is their obligation, not the obligation of the taxpayers of Michigan."

Hurd Riddick's concerns extend to the DEQ, where officials condemned the bill's passage as "bad for Michigan." They say environmental cleanup is sure to slow and become more costly if the governor signs the bill into law.

DEQ spokesman Robert McCann said companies could challenge random properties within a "facility" to postpone cleanup. Once on those properties, they could select sampling spots where contamination levels are likely to fall within acceptable ranges. Should those samples come up clean, the state would get stuck with the bill.

"It gives someone who is looking to slow the process easy access to the tools to do it," he said.

Granholm has 14 days to make a decision. v

Jeremiah Stettler is a staff writer at the Saginaw News. You may reach him at 776-9685.
 

For additional articles like this one, go to the Tittabawassee River Watch web site www.trwnews.net for complete coverage of the Tittabawassee River Dow Chemical dioxin contamination saga. . The Newspaper / Media page of our site contains an extensive archive of media articles dating back to January 2002. The source organization's web site link is listed to the right of the article, visit often for other news in our area. The Newspaper / Media page may be accessed by scrolling down to the bottom of the CONTENTS section and clicking on the Newspaper/Media link.