Michigan Reclaims $5 million in Landfill Clean-up Costs

Lynn Schenkman

Lansing, Mich. -- A consent decree filed against 82 parties will allow Michigan to recover approximately $5 million the state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) previously spent on clean up at the former Sunrise Landfill in Wayland Township. Solid and liquid industrial wastes were disposed at the landfill from the late 1960s until 1978, when the site closed. In 1999 and 2000, the DEQ spent approximately $6 million removing 6,000 buried drums of industrial waste.

The decree was brought to the Ingham County court by the attorney general’s office, which agreed not to sue the defendants for past response activity costs. Some of the defendants previously had participated in three separate lawsuits, under which the settling parties performed a remedial investigation and feasibility study, reimbursed more than $3 million state costs and are installing and must maintain a new landfill cap, leachate collection system and groundwater monitoring system.