KALAMAZOO, Mich. (WOOD) — The Michigan PFAS Action Response Team has declared a new contamination site in West Michigan: the former Cork Street Landfill in Kalamazoo.
The unlined landfill, between Emerald Drive and Millcork Street, operated from 1925 until 1992. It switched ownership a handful of times, including a stretch when it was owned and operated by the city of Kalamazoo.
The site was added to the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Priorities List in 1990 after contamination from several different chemicals was found, including benzene, lead, arsenic and zinc.
According to MPART, the landfill was capped in 2002 and monitored with regular inspections. The Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy added the site to its Industrial Pretreatment Program in April of 2018, testing the leachate coming from the landfill.
That testing has found elevated levels of PFAS, including 210 parts per trillion of PFOS: perfluorooctane sulfonate. The state’s maximum contaminant level for PFOS is 16 ppt.
Most of the neighborhood surrounding the site is on the city’s municipal water system. However, leachate and groundwater from the former landfill discharges into nearby Davis Creek.
The closest residential wells are approximately three-quarters of a mile northeast of the site. However, because of the large amount of clay in the ground makeup, both EGLE and the Michigan Department of Health & Human Services agreed that sampling was not required for those residential wells.
PFAS — or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances — are a large group of compounds first developed in the 1940s and incorporated into all sorts of products for waterproofing and heat resistance. Decades later, research showed that PFAS compounds take a long time to break down organically and can build up in the human body, causing serious health problems, including cancer.
According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Services, there are more than 15,000 known PFAS compounds.
The Environmental Working Group says there are now more than 5,000 confirmed PFAS-contaminated sites across the United States, including at least one in all 50 states, Washington D.C. and two American territories.