Ford plant's toxic groundwater plume creeping toward neighborhood

ford livonia transmission plant.jpg

Ford Motor Co. transmission plant at 36200 Plymouth Road in Livonia.

(Wikimedia Commons | Dwight Burdette)

LIVONIA, MI -- Ford Motor Co. will be pulling groundwater samples from a residential neighborhood adjacent to its Livonia transmission plant next week in an effort to discover how far a toxic pollution plume has spread from its facility.

Todd Walton, Ford's global site assessment and remediation manager, said vinyl chloride, a breakdown byproduct of trichloroethylene, or TCE, has been discovered moving east of the plant in quantities well above the federal drinking water standard, although the company says local tap water supplies are not affected because Livonia buys municipal drinking water from Detroit.

The extent of the plume is still being determined. Walton said TCE, a well-known carcinogen, was discovered on plant grounds in August during renovations. The chemical was used as a degreasing agent and parts cleaner until some point in the 1980s. The Livonia plant opened in 1952.

"Sometime between 1952 and the 1980s, it appears we had a release or spill."

Groundwater in the area moves eastward and Walton said soil sampling shows the TCE byproduct is between 7 to 28 feet down and moving toward Belden Court, a light industrial cul-de-sac to the immediate east of the Livonia campus. East of that is a residential neighborhood, the Alden Village subdivision.

Testing at one site on the northern end of Belden Court found vinyl chloride at 28 parts-per-billion (ppb) and 12 ppb at different depths in the same location. Of the 37 samples taken around Belden Court, 11 were above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency drinking water regulatory limit of 2 ppb.

Ford notified the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the city of Livonia and businesses on the west side of Belden Court on Aug. 14, and business on the east side on Dec. 18. This week, letters went out to homeowners in the residential neighborhood. A website has been set up and a meeting is scheduled for Monday, Feb. 8.

Ford Motor Co. transmission plant at 36200 Plymouth Road in Livonia. To the immediate east is Belden Court and the Alden Village residential subdivision.

"Everybody in the residential area is hooked up to municipal water," said Paul Owens, with the Warren office of the DEQ. "There's no private wells."

Owens said there's not currently any indication people have come into direct contact with the chemicals or inhaled chemical vapors from the plume.

"We've looked at all the exposure pathways," he said. "All around, it appears to be low risk at this time."

Dave Varga, administrative services director for the city of Livonia, said the city hired an outside consultant to independently examine the testing data.

Federal regulations place the cleanup burden on Ford. The company is required to define the affected area, which is why residents of the Alden Village subdivision will see sample drilling on the public right-of-way next week.

Walton said plant employees have been notified of the plume.

It's not the first time Ford has dealt with TCE cleanup. In 2013, the company settled a lawsuit with Shelby Township and agreed to cleanup and monitor after TCE contamination was found at its former Utica Trim Plant property. The company can be held liable for pollution long after a property is sold.

"We have a lot of familiarity with this," said Walton. "It's not that unusual for a manufacturing site. It's something we've dealt with before."

Exactly how, or if, the plume will be cleaned up hasn't been determined.

"We wanted to make sure that, rather than residents seeing a drill in the street in front of their house and asking a lot of questions -- especially in the context of the Flint story breaking -- we'd be proactive and put out a communication plan to inform the neighborhood of what was going on before we did it," Walton said.

Ford will "100 percent pay for everything and do what's right."

Garret Ellison covers business, environment & the Great Lakes for MLive Media Group. Email him at gellison@mlive.com or follow on Twitter & Instagram

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