FeedsEarly park testing shows buried debris
The results of recent environmental testing in Central City Park confirm concerns about buried debris.
High lead levels discovered in parts of the park prompted the testing by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. The property is owned by Wayne County and leased to Westland.
The lead was originally attributed to the previous use of the site as a dumping ground for Wayne County Road Commission street sweepings. Photographs, however, suggested that the site had been an unofficial dump for debris of all kinds. The park has been closed since November for testing.
According to MDEQ spokesman Robert McCann, the department has not been able to complete all the desired testing at the site. However, he said that the recently compiled results of geophysical testing—basically scans of the ground beneath the park surface—backed up previous allegations that dumping was widespread on the site prior to its conversion to a park.
“It did show some anomalies all throughout the site,” he said. “Clearly, what the results showed is that things are buried there.”
McCaan said that the soil borings—core samples removed from various areas of the park—expected to begin next week are what will really tell officials what they are dealing with. The soil samples will be analyzed to determine precisely what elements they contain, which will indicate all elements involved rather than only specific elements such as lead.
McCaan added that it would take about two weeks to complete the testing with the results ready soon afterwards. He was unable to provide a more precise timeline.
“We want to move forward with this but we also want to do it in the right way,” he said.
At this point, he said that it was too soon to tell specifically what steps the MDEQ would recommend once the borings were completed.
“We need to take the time to do the soil samples,” he said. “Last year, we were operating under the assumption that we were working with little pockets of street sweepings from years before. We don’t know at this point what the next step will be.”
Mayor Bill Wild was unable to comment on the findings Tuesday since he received the charts displaying the findings without the key used to identify precisely what the colors and symbols the charts stand for late in the day. However, he intended to have further information available to Westland officials and to residents as soon as possible.
“We expect to sit down with officials from Wayne County and the MDEQ…to review the results we have received today,” he said.
