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November 20, 2005Graceland, blueberries - and an orange creekA close look at the DEQ findingsHONOR -- Investigators followed a trail of blueberry juice from a contaminated stream back to the fruit processing facility it came from and concluded the people who put the waste in the ground knew -- or should have known -- they were committing a crime.Thomas Wingate, a detective sergeant who works for the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, scoured Benzie County to find people who dealt with blueberry juice from Graceland Fruit Inc. or the company who hauled it, Bonney Bros. Septic Pumping. Wingate concluded that both Graceland and Bonney had been told blueberry waste could not be disposed of by a septic hauler. Wingate's findings, turned over to the Michigan Attorney General, included: - Julian Sears, a then-87-year-old farmer who worked 80 acres near Beulah, allowed Bonney Bros. to spread septic waste on parts of his farm for 10 years but told Bonney and Graceland he didn't want the blueberry waste. Sears said he could not stand the smell. He told Graceland's CEO Donald Nugent and Kevin Bonney to stop dumping it on his land. And Nugent acknowledged to Wingate that a farmer complained about the waste turning his grass black. - For a short time Graceland took the blueberry waste to a Frankfort wastewater treatment plant run by the Betsie Lake Utility Authority. The authority's superintendent, Ernest Elliott, told Wingate the treatment plant could not handle the waste and said he told Graceland it would no longer be accepted. - Elliott ran a septic hauling business on the side, and Nugent tried to get him to take the blueberry waste as septic waste, but Elliott refused. "Elliott thought that both Bonney and Nugent knew it was wrong for Bonney's to be hauling the waste," Wingate wrote. "He said that he knows that Graceland knows all about land application of its waste because they use that method of disposal at their other plant near his home." - Graceland has land-applied waste around its Forrester Road facility since 1973. DEQ water division analyst Brian Myers said Graceland was notified in 1996 and in 1999 that the company's waste disposal process had caused elevated chemical oxygen demand in the groundwater, a sign of pollution. - Bonney had a permit to haul septic waste, but had been warned about hauling other, non-septic waste. Tom Fountain, of the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department, "caught Bonney's driver at a car wash removing car wash waste, and warned Kevin Bonney that he was not licensed to haul anything except septic waste," Wingate wrote. Wingate said Fountain concluded that the warning "put Bonney on notice, and he should have known that hauling the blueberry waste was illegal." - A former Graceland employee told Wingate that Bonney was hired to save money. "They thought it was great to get a local, small-time operator to take the product off their hands, and they didn't want to know the details," Wingate wrote. Steve Nugent, Donald's son and Graceland's chief operating officer, disputed Wingate's allegations. He said the former employee was let go for performance reasons and had a motive to denigrate the company. The DEQ calls blueberry juice "liquid industrial waste," but Steve Nugent said Graceland did nothing wrong because they contend blueberry waste is an organic product, not industrial waste, so it's legal to apply it to fields like septic waste. "Bonney was licensed to handle this waste, we don't consider it industrial waste; the product is an organic product," Steve Nugent said. See Related Stories:
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