FeedsOfficials resigned to park study timeline
Another round of environmental testing is under way in Central City Park as officials search for answers to ongoing contamination concerns.
Late last year, city officials temporarily closed the park after revelations of heightened lead levels rocked the community. Originally the lead was attributed to the past use of the park land as a disposal site for Wayne County Road Commission debris, which could have included lead remnants from gasoline common at the time.
Later evidence, including photos, indicating that the site had previously been used as an unauthorized dump convinced the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) to take a deeper look at the site, which the city leases from Wayne County.
The MDEQ Geological Services Unit descended on the park on Monday to collect geoprobe or ‘boring’ samples. Essentially, the team will drill into the soil at varying depths at 65 sites within the park to collect dirt samples as well collect groundwater samples from 8 feet below the surface. Some samples will also be collected outside the boundaries of the fenced-off park to search for contamination exits. All of the samples will be analyzed to determine precisely what elements they contain, as researchers look for not only lead but also for other harmful substances such as mercury and arsenic. The MDEQ personnel will also search for the presence of methane on the site.
“This initiates the next phase of environmental testing at Central City Park and we look forward to cooperating with both MDEQ and Wayne County officials as this phase of testing begins,” said Westland Mayor Bill Wild.
Since January, the MDEQ has been testing the site in an effort to identify environmental hazards other than lead. The results of geophysical testing—basically scans of the ground beneath the park surface—completed in late March showed abnormalities that indicated the presence of buried objects, according to MDEQ spokesman Robert McCann.
“From our point of view, the first round was not particularly diagnostic,” said Assistant Wayne County Executive Alan Helmkamp. “We’ve acknowledged all along that there could be any number of types of metal there.”
He added that the known past use of the site could potentially have resulted in items such as metal rods and concrete blocks beneath the surface. Now, Helmkamp said, the county plans to “sit back and wait for the results” as they wait for experts for both Wayne County and the MDEQ to pinpoint precisely what will need to be remedied.
According to Wild, a multifaceted standard was used by the MDEQ to determine where they were going to test. He said that the sites not only take into account the results of the testing completed late last month, they also take into consideration such things as photographs of the site from its days as a de facto dump. He added that the testing is also designed to give the state an idea of the baseline reading for the area as well as information specifically geared for the fill site.
“It’s pretty much a grid of the park,” he said.
MDEQ officials told Wild that it would take about two weeks to complete the testing, up to another six weeks for the results to be compiled, and at least a month after that for the results to be turned into reports on the findings, he said. As a result, additional information isn’t expected until early July. However, Wild said that he plans to pass the findings on to the members of the Westland City Council and to the residents as information become available.
He does not know what to expect as far as possible remediation plans are concerned, however, and he’s not alone. Earlier this month, McCann indicated that the department intended to adopt a watch-and-wait stance.
“We need to take the time to do the soil samples,” he said at the time. “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.”
