Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Toxic Sludge Headed to Michigan from Wisconsin

Argh!! I made the mistake of opening my email and found this little gem about more toxic shit heading our way from out of state.

"Toxic waste from a pollution hot spot in the Fox River will be trucked to the Detroit area for final disposal, companies involved in the cleanup announced Tuesday. Dredging at the hot spot along the river's western shoreline north of the De Pere Dam is set to begin in May. Trucks will carry the waste through De Pere and Ashwaubenon to reach Wisconsin 172 and eventually Interstate 43."

The trucks will be loaded down with PCB laden muck from the river. They will travel though Milwaukee, down I-94 through Chicago and across Michigan to Detroit to the Wayne Disposal Inc. Landfill. It is the only landfill in the Midwest permitted under the Toxic Substances Control Act to accept toxic waste. It's going to take all summer to move all the sludge.

Is anyone going to put notices up on i-94 telling drivers that there are truckloads of PCB's on the highway with them?

Call me crazy, (yeah, I'm a wacko treehugger) but If you put wet soil full of PCB's in trucks and drive it several hundred miles in the middle of summer, eventually the soil is going to start to dry out and turn to toxic dust blowing all over the road. I don't care how well you clean the truck or seal it, after several hundred miles of driving it's going to leak out.

I fully understand the need to clean up the river, but I think you folks in Wisconsin need to stop sending us your toxic crap and figure out how to deal with it there. If you can't figure out how to store it, then maybe your legislature should pass laws saying it can't be manufactured or used in production processes until you have a safe method of disposing it. Why should Michigan, dead center in the middle of the best sources of fresh water on Earth, have to be everyone's toxic dumping ground?


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