FeedsLatest park testing results are ‘mixed’
Last week, Westland officials received a few answers—as well as more questions—about potential environmental contaminants in Central City Park.
The latest round of testing concluded on Friday as crews from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (MDEQ) and landowner Wayne County searched for answers. They collected geoprobe borings with soil and groundwater samples from throughout the park for analysis and tested for methane gas. The results are expected in about six weeks.
Westland Mayor Bill Wild he said that preliminary results offered some promising developments.
“They found no industrial products or solvents,” he said. “I think that’s good news for the City of Westland.”
In addition, MDEQ spokesman Robert McCann confirmed Tuesday that the MDEQ had included the Tattan Park/ ‘Tot Town’ and lawn bowling areas due to concerns voiced by residents.
“Based on everything we found, those two areas are not of concern,” said McCann.
Preliminary results have supported expectations of finding landfill debris on the south side of the park and street waste on the northern end, Wild said.
“They identified methane gas in several of the borings,” said Wild. The presence of the gas, he said, is an expected result of decomposing trash.
“We’re finding what we expected to find,” said McCann. “There’s nothing shocking.”
However, he stressed that the MDEQ would not know what the next step will be until the final results are in.
“We’ll need to get the lab results before we can go any further,” said McCann. “There’s definitely a lead problem that needs to be addressed.”
Wild said that the city could potentially receive some of the results sooner, depending on when results of the testing done by Wayne County become available.
Meanwhile, legal counsel for the city is evaluating the impact a recently rediscovered document could have on the city in terms of liability. Representatives of Wayne County provided city officials with a copy of a 2-year agreement between Wayne County and Nankin Township, dated in March of 1956, which arranged for a sanitary landfill to be created on the current park site, Wild said.
Central City Park was shut down for environmental testing last fall due to concerns about heightened lead levels. Originally attributed to the use of the site as a dumping ground by Wayne County Road Commission, further investigation indicated that the area had also been used as a landfill. Previous testing had indicated the presence of buried debris in some sections of the property. The land is leased to the City of Westland by Wayne County.
