Van Buren Charter Township Radiation Disaster 2024

I am the Mayor Pro-Tem at the City of Wayne. We are seeing many trucks reportedly contracted or order by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and/or rail shipments of radioactive materials making their way from Lewiston, NY, purportedly from the Niagara Falls Storage Site to the Charter Township of Van Buren in Michigan. It has come to my attention that there are PCB’s and PFAS in the shipment and that these PCB’s and PFAS are radioactive. As you are aware Polychlorinated Biphenyls and Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances are highly toxic substances. So much so that many of them are no longer allowed to be manufactured anywhere in the world and others can only be imported from areas with backward law systems and outdated scientific and engineering communities. It has also come to my attention that at the same time the material from the Niagara Falls Storage site is being excavated and moved there are other enormous deposits of radioactive material in the area that the United States Army Corps of Engineers is also moving. Can you tell me if any of this material is being mingled? Are we seeing dangerous, toxic, mutagens from just the Niagara Falls Storage Site coming to the heavily populated area surrounding the Republic Services ‘Belleville Site’ (which is in the Charter Township of Van Buren – not Belleville)? Or are seeing the dangerous, radioactive mutagens from the Niagara Falls Storage Site being mingled with and shipped together with the dangerous, radioactive mutagens from the other sites in Lewiston that contain radioactive materials? I understand that there is also work being done on an Hooker Chemicals site that was a sister-location to the Love Canal. Are you sending any of that waste in these shipments? I just want to be sure that the dangerous, radioactive, toxic mutagens coming from the Niagara Falls Storage Site are kept separate from the other dangers, toxic mutagens you are dealing with in upstate New York. I need to inform you there were no public hearings here in Michigan that I am aware of. Was the United States Army of Engineers ever in contact with any Michigan State elected or appointed officials concerning these transfers? If so – who were those Michigan State elected or appointed officials? Was the Governor of the State of Michigan notified? If so – can I have a copy of that notification or will I have to pay for it through a ‘Freedom of Information Act’? We have many young families, sensitive seniors, rare biomes, a lake (Ford Lake), the Huron River Watershed, advanced medical treatment and research facilities, incredibly high levels of existing and developing cancers, Below you will see letter I have sent to some officials here in Michigan. Today I started reading about other materials in your area including a smooth, black radioactive sand and other materials. I don’t know if the Hooker Site I was also reading about this morning is in or just nearby Lewiston, but the more I am learning the more I am becoming alarmed for my neighbors. Can you give us any information about what is going on over there? We are seeing like 25 trucks a day arriving here with contaminated soil and liquids which apparently includes radioactive PCB’s and PFAS. Any information you could provide would be welcome. Governor Hochul, Governor Whitmer nor any of the other actors in this process are responding to simple queries. They did not have any public meetings at all on this side of the Niagara River. I have nothing in hand telling me what is in the shipments nor how many there will be nor when they started. I was under the impression this would begin in January, giving us time to impress upon all parties are intention of actually processing any toxic materials coming here rather than burying them or injecting them into the Great Lakes Basin. I am writing due to the unnatural silence of responsible parties on a serious issue in the State of Michigan. In Wayne County we have been subjected to cruel actions as a result of deals and agreements made without public input and against public interests as well as public health. Outdated processes are being used to import nuclear waste from Lewiston, New York, to Van Buren Charter Township, Michigan. Opportunities are being missed, families are being exposed to danger, real estate prices are slumping in the general area, including Belleville, Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Canton Charter Township and in other areas. This is due to the bad press and dangerous situation that has arisen by the importation of these materials. If you examine maps of where they have been moving and burying this toxic waste you will see they are moving it from relatively unpopulated areas in the West to heavily populated areas in the East. It is quite insane. This particular batch of nuclear waste has already been involved in polluting the Columbia River, the Niagara River and now is being buried 200 feet from Ford Lake. How many deformed babies must be aborted before something is done? How many more cancers and illnesses must the citizens of Michigan suffer before any voices are raised? This agreement, you may agree, has led to a situation that clearly serves a select few while subjecting the citizens to deception, disease, poverty and hunger. If you don’t believe the last sentence I wrote I urge you to check the statistics and numbers that are freely available. Go to the neighborhoods and talk to the people. As for the opportunities presented by the waste – it has been nearly a century, and, except for the company driven out of business when the materials arrived in Lewiston, New York, there has been no real attempt to clean the materials. We are not being given the earned opportunity to jumpstart this necessary industry – they skipped us and are burying it. We need jobs not radiation. What has become of nano-technology? What has become of fixated the materials and burying them in remote areas? What is the purpose behind burying it in the same sort of area three different times, each time seeing the volume of it grow through ionization, without ever dealing with it? You are aware, I should hope, that a loan has been provided to the State of Michigan to restart a faulty nuclear plant in Palisades, Michigan, while the state clear demonstrates it has no reasonable ability to deal with the waste it already has. Now it is being imported for profit by a company in which Michigan’s retirement systems have a considerable financial stake. This is beyond any sort of regulation. The people who ultimately suffer are those whose families will experience birth defects, cancers, respiratory illness and other diseases. Science has no value if it is not used reasonably and is not twisted in order to produce information that supports dangerous and deadly activities simply to fill a bank account. General Remarks On the Waste : I am disappointed that a Supervisor from the Charter Township of Van Buren was invited to this discussion yet elected representatives from cities, towns and even Ann Arbor, which are directly impacted by the continued reckless behavior we are seeing with waste in Wayne County were ignored. I strongly feel that the Material needs to go back to Hanford, Washington for proper treatment, not put under a plastic sheet alongside of flammable materials, toxic chemicals and dangerous biological waste. Here is a collection of materials regarding the decision process to get that material out of Lewiston, New York. They started the process in 2016. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1WcSH1JRcSQu8Xaj4EK2ZzzfZUPrOYDmj?usp=sharing Here is a compendium of material regarding the process and the materials that will be moved : https://thewaynefocus.blogspot.com/2024/08/nuclear-waste-heading-to-michigan-from.html Here is a Kindle Version which is free for this week - feel free to share it if you find it of interest : https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DDQTWJLN ===================================================== Interesting Notes : Republic Services is enjoying record market capitalization that has ballooned over the past two years. The Michigan Employment Retirement System holds large positions in Republic Services, Waste Management (WM) and other large waste haulers. Waste Haulers are using Michigan as a preferred point of disposal because of what are called tipping fees. The tipping fees in Michigan are the lowest in the United States. Waste is being brought here from as far away as New Jersey, New York (as we see here), Ohio, West Virginia, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and all across Canada. =============================================== Here is a folder with just a few images of what we are dealing with in the City of Wayne. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wMq1S1eHdUk_FxNjxAZWao4rJbHRYNjQ?usp=drive_link ================================================= The City of Wayne leads the State of Michigan in percentiles regarding Cancer, Respiratory Illness, Kidney Disease, Liver Disease and other serious illness. There is no intention by the State of Michigan to do anything about it. Republic Services operates US Ecology on Van Born Road which incinerates and treats toxic chemicals. It is located near to schools and homes. Waste Management (WM) had a fire a couple of weeks ago in the Charter Township of Van Buren a few hundred feet from over 900 homes housing seniors, families, children and singles. It took them 24 hours to contact EGLE. One fire truck showed up. They reported it out when it was still burning. On the border of Wayne and the Charter Township of Canton there is a company called Ameresco that belches out flares containing heavy metals and Volatile Organic Substances 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. I don't know what else to say. I had to read about this meeting in a newspaper on the internet. They didn't even have the common courtesy of inviting representatives of the people suffering from their decisions to come along and be insulted directly. Here is more information I have recently gathered from the news on the internet – thank God the reporters and newspapers are coming back to life! “Jun 18 2024 Lawsuit: Radioactive waste killed Lewiston woman Federal investigators found and removed thousands of tons of radioactive material from Philip Palmeri's home and a neighboring property in Niagara County. They also found solid clues about the source of the contamination.” “Six months after his wife died from breast cancer, an environmental remediation team digging underneath Philip Palmeri’s Lewiston home uncovered “black fine grain radioactive sand, refractory brick, ash slag, and what appears to be lime.” That’s not all they found. Over the course of a three-year, $7 million cleanup operation, the team removed 4,800 tons of waste from Palmeri’s and an adjacent property, some of it emitting radiation 50 times beyond what’s considered a safe or normal level.” https://www.investigativepost.org/2024/06/18/radioactive-material-in-lewiston/