Injection well ceases after ten months
The saga of liquid waste injection disposal in the city of Romulus had neared fifteen years in the making. Finally, operations had begun at the facility on Citrin Drive on December 27, 2005, when the final go-ahead permit was issued, with the company starting injections immediately thereafter.
However, the site was closed down on October 23, 2006 as an above-ground leak was detected during a routine inspection.
Once again, protests began to ring in about proposals to restart the complex once the leak was shored up. Guarantees had been trumpeted that the waste materials would be safe for 10,000 years without danger of a leak or seepage, but since concurrence wasn’t being heard from state or federal officials, doubts persisted.
A total of a million gallons of waste had been injected into the Mt. Simon Foundation of the earth, when 40 million gallons had been its eventual goal. The firm’s borrowing level from the Detroit Police & Fire Department Retirement Fund had now hit a staggering $58 million.
By the end of 2006 it appeared the original operator, Environmental Disposal Systems (EDS) was, in fact, out of business. Their phone lines and website were down. Calls were now being answered by a different entity called Romulus Deep Disposal. No one knew at the time if the companies were linked.
Foreign trash deliveries prohibited
One of the most unpopular procedures enacted in the 1990s had been the approval for Michigan landfills to accept refuse from Canada, shipped from Toronto via the Ambassador Bridge to landfills in Riverview and Carleton. Within the first few years of the law’s implementation, the amount of overall refuse delivered to local landfills had increased over 300% due to the Federal Government’s failure to enforce certain limit restrictions.
Noting these disturbing stats, while also calling to mind a February 2005 accident in which human waste found its way onto Will-Carleton Road in Flat Rock (resulting in a $23,000 cost to properly clean up), officials were pleased by a plan formulated by Governor Jennifer Granholm, in cooperation with Laurel Broten, then the Minister of Environment for Ontario.
Announced by Senators Carl Levin and Debbie Stabenow, the new deal would guarantee a 20% reduction in Canadian shipments in its first year, a 40% reduction the year after, and a complete phase-out of all foreign trash within four years of the pact’s implementation. Six municipalities had found alternative plans which would keep Canadian shipments in Canada. Riverview’s operation, in particular, had stopped accepting shipments years before. Riverview Mayor Tim Durand cited the reason for this was that Canadian citizens were starting to look for alternative trash-hauling services within their own country.
Freedom of Expression issues in Lincoln Park
The start of the 2006-2007 school year in Lincoln Park brought much backlash from students and parents alike, as a toughened stance was taken with implementation of the district’s first official dress code in many years. School Board officials, led by Superintendent Randall Kite, stated that no messages would be allowed on T-shirts, and these shirts must be tucked in during the school day. It was stated that the mission of this directive was to help foster school identity, with an added benefit of more easily identifying individuals who did not belong in the schools.
Although the dress code was not as stringent as it would be at a parochial school, for instance, the reactions from the general public were largely negative. Parents claimed it was difficult to find plain T-shirts with no slogans on them, while many stated an entire new wardrobe would have to be purchased in order to comply, at substantial personal cost. A petition garnered 700 parental signatures; in so doing they stated punishments for original dress code violations should be more rigidly enforced instead.
Not budging on their decision, the School Board began to have complaints directed toward them with regularity, and in effect took parents to task for encouraging their children to not comply with the code. This was precisely what some parents had actually done. These violations were threatened with suspension. Parents then threatened to remove their children from the district. This may have had some merit, as a September 2006 student count showed 120 fewer students than a spring count the prior school year. Superintendent Kite admitted that approximately 30 students may have been removed for that reason alone. The issue would flare up further as the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center approached; many students chose to wear T-shirts commemorating the catastrophe. Five students were asked to change clothes, three were ultimately sent home.
Eventually, a compromise would be reached to where the policy on tucked-in shirts would be relaxed. However, the requirement for plain T-shirts would remain in place.
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