EGLE says Tribar has not cooperated in its investigation of the spill. That may be because the company has not maintained proper documentation of its pollutants despite being flagged in the past for infractions. From MLive:
The company failed to immediately notify EGLE about the discharge, interfered with a city’s wastewater treatment and failed to maintain a pollution prevention plan, EGLE says.
The citations follow unrelated violation notices from the agency’s air quality division following a July inspection, which found the company was not keeping adequate records and was not properly operating equipment which controls nickel and chromium emissions.
This isn’t even the first time Tribar has poisoned the waterways. The company was mainly responsible for releasing an “astronomical” amount of PFAS into the water, leading to a years-long, perhaps permanent “do not eat” order on fish caught in waterways fed by the Huron River.
Residents everywhere from the small farming community of Milford all the way to the city of Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, are calling on the state to shutter Tribar Manufacturing. U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell is also involved, calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to assist the state in fining the company and cleaning up the contaminant, the Detroit News reports:
In her letter, Dingell asked the EPA’s Shore a series of questions, including whether the agency could provide additional resources to the spill response, whether it had taken enforcement actions against the company, whether it was notified about the spill and about treatment options and the EPA’s involvement to date.
“There is growing alarm and uncertainty from downstream residents and across southeast Michigan in the aftermath of this disturbing release by Tribar Technologies Inc.,” she wrote. “Therefore, it is critical, moving forward, for EPA to be directly involved in this emergency response and to ensure all responsible parties are held accountable.”
The EGLE has been busy collecting hundreds of samples from affected waterways, with only a few coming up positive for dangerous concentrations of hexavalent chromium. The chemical, however, is not easily removed from waterways. A “forever chemical” hexavalent chromium must be physically removed by hauling away contaminated soil and water or treating water to turn the hexavalent chromium into the less toxic (though more expensive) trivalent version.
For its part, the Huron River Watershed Council has signed on to a petition along with other reputable environmental groups to ask auto manufacturers to eliminate the use of hexavalent chromium in their manufacturing. A no contact order remains in affect for all those living north of the Wixom water treatment plant. The chemical could begin moving up the river over the next few weeks to Ann Arbor, where the river is the main source of drinking water for residents.
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Auto Parts Supplier Ignored 460 Alarms in 3 Hours as Hazardous Chemical Flooded Waterways - Jalopnik
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