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West Michigan News Company Lee Township Contamination |
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Published 10/01/07 In January of 2006, the Lee Township Board was ready to approve that property along the railroad tracks could be used as a landfill. This property was known as the Haekel property. The residents of Lee Township took exception to their supposed elected officials because the property they were going to use was wetlands and it would contaminate the drinking water of not only Lee Township, but their neighbor Casco Township. It would drain through underground aquifers directly into the Black River going through South Haven. A Recall Petition for the entire Township Board was passed through the residents and enough signatures were acquired to put this recall on the August, 2006 Primary ballot. Two out of five board members were recalled in what turned out to be an eye opener election. The Allegan County Board of Public Works met to review the situation and closed the citing mechanism, which appeased the residents, but bypassed the county so that a state application could be started immediately. Meanwhile, the Lower Scott Lake Association in Lee Township had applied to the state DEQ for a permit to dredge their lake. At first the permit was denied, because the bottom of the lake had very high levels of arsenic poisoning, and the association wanted to dump these dredgings on the Haekel property. They had another test done that did not go down to the bottom of the lake but only down to 11 feet. At that level, the arsenic levels were just below the allowable levels and a permit was issued. The residents surrounding the containment site requested the right to have these dredgings audited to make sure that the arsenic levels did not exceed the approved limits, but the association refused and threatened to have anyone taking samples from the site arrested. There is a Federal Ruling that states if property is contaminated, it can then be used as a landfill. It is our contention that there is a conspiracy by certain county and township officials to have that property contaminated by the current dredging process in order to get a landfill approved. Published 12/14/07 Since our lab results have shown that the citizens of Clyde and Lee Townships have been correct since 2,000 in their fears that officials would with full knowledge dredge highly contaminated levels into this holding pond thereby putting the citizens of Allegan and Van Buren Counties at a high level of risk for both arsenic and cancer health problems, we feel there should be an investigation initiated immediately on the following parties:
Additionally, the lab reports actually done by the lab the association was using should be made public to see if they are hiding any damaging reports.
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