04/18/2007

Resort water may be hauled off

Contaminated liquid may go to Antrim County

By CRAIG McCOOL

cmccool@record-eagle.com

BAY HARBOR — Contaminated water from an extensive shoreline cleanup at Bay Harbor may soon be trucked to Antrim County and pumped deep underground.

CMS Energy officials funding the cleanup at the resort requested that federal regulators allow them to drill a deep injection well in Antrim County's Star Township, near Alba.

CMS spokesman Tim Petrosky said the well, if approved, would replace a similar, non-company well site CMS has used in Johannesburg.

"We believe we can achieve better cost control operating our own well,” Petrosky said.

William Bates, a scientist with the Chicago office of the Environmental Protection Agency, said EPA officials have had the application since last October, though neighbors of the proposed site received notification this month.

"We review it and make sure everything is sound. Then we public-notice it. If it appears that there is sufficient concern, we hold a public hearing,” Bates said.

Bates said "several” people contacted the EPA and a public hearing is likely, though not yet scheduled.

Keith Martell, a Gaylord resident who owns property adjacent to the proposed well site, opposes the plan.

"My concern is, if there are spills there … you can imagine what it would do to property values, not to mention the public health hazard it poses,” he said. "They are calling it 'non-hazardous' material, but if that's the case, why are they hauling to a remote area to be pumped underground?”

The Bay Harbor resort, of which CMS was an initial developing partner, formerly housed a cement plant. In 2005, caustic leachate from buried piles of cement kiln dust was discovered along the Little Traverse Bay shoreline. CMS is funding the cleanup, estimated to cost $93 million.

The company hauls as much as 100,000 gallons of leachate off-site each day. Costs can be as high as 20 cents a gallon, Petrosky said. Some of the waste goes to Grand Traverse County's septage treatment plant, but the majority is trucked to Johannesburg.

The proposed new well site is off County Road 42 about four miles east of Alba, 30 miles from Bay Harbor, roughly half the distance to the Johannesburg well site.

"The geology of that area is conducive to such an operation,” Petrosky said.

The application is for a "Class I” injection well, with "more stringent” design and operation regulations than other injection wells, Bates said. The proposed depth of 2,200-plus feet is more than 900 feet below the base of the drinking water aquifer, he said.