News Release
11/06/96
Bay City Landfill Evaluated
Surface soil on the landfill, located at the intersection of Evergreen Road and Hotchkiss Avenue, is contaminated with toxic chemicals that could be dangerous to people who make prolonged or frequent visits within the landfill fence. Municipal and industrial wastes were disposed of in the landfill, and some industrial chemicals, including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), have leaked from the landfill into the ditches surrounding the site and into the groundwater beneath it. No one is using the contaminated groundwater for drinking or other household purposes.
The landfill is one current source for PCBs found in the water, sediment, and fish of the Saginaw River. The concentrations of PCBs that have been found in the water and sediment of the river near the landfill do not pose any direct public health threat to people using the river for recreation, such as boating or swimming.
MDCH has also issued an advisory that no one eat catfish taken from the Saginaw River and that no one eat large quantities of any kind of fish taken from the river, because of contamination with PCBs and dioxins attributed to many sources in the river's watershed, including the landfill.
The site has been proposed for the Superfund National Priorities List, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) is investigating the site to determine the appropriate clean-up method.
The Bay City Middlegrounds Landfill site is a former municipal landfill located on Middleground Island in the Saginaw River in southwest Bay City. The landfill is on the west side of the island, along the bank of the west channel of the river. The landfill began operation in 1956, placing waste in borrow pits dug for earlier road construction on the island. When the first set of pits filled up, additional trenches were dug. In 1974, the trench-and-fill method was abandoned, and part of the landfill was covered with 5 feet of clay. The city constructed additional above-ground landfill cells atop this clay cover, and continued using the landfill until 1984.
Between 1974 and 1984, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used an area north of the landfill to dewater sediments dredged from the river. These sediments were used to cover the
waste in the landfill. In 1987, a 2-foot thick clay cap was built over the above-ground landfill and a fence was built around three sides, leaving the riverbank side unfenced. The cover was not fully sealed to the lower cap. Rainwater has seeped through the cover into the waste, dissolved some of the waste materials, and this leachate has seeped into the ditches along Evergreen Road and Hotchkiss Avenue near the landfill, outside the fence.
This assessment is a revision of the draft Public Health Assessment for the site that the department released for public comment on January 31, 1996. MDCH welcomes further public comment on the Public Health Assessment and will accept any new information regarding the site for inclusion in future assessments of the site. Copies of the Public Health Assessment are available for review at the Sage Public Library, the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) District Offices in Bay City, and the Bay County Health Department offices.
Information and comments should be addressed to the Michigan Department of Community Health, Division of Health Risk Assessment, 3423 North Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., P.O. Box 30195, Lansing, Michigan 48909. People may also call the toll-free telephone number, 1-800-MI-TOXIC.
The Public Health Assessment on the Bay City Middlegrounds Landfill site was conducted by the MDCH under a cooperative agreement with the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) in Atlanta, Georgia.
For more information, call John L. Hesse or Brendan Boyle at the MDCH Division of Health Risk Assessment, (517) 335-8350 or at the toll-free number above.