By Kristen Tuinstra

A new report on Ingham County’s surface and groundwater released last week explains what was contained in about 110 missing pages, a national group said. The group charged that the county Health Department suppressed information discovered in a two-year study of the county’s water quality.

Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) said the pages were removed from the department’s final 20-page surface and groundwater report released in December 2000.

The group released the complete report, "The Story of Water Resources at Work," in an effort to explain to Ingham County residents what "their government’s research is revealing about the health effects of pollution."

The report addresses boron, arsenic and other chemicals found in Ingham county’s water supply. Sewage sludge, leaking gasoline storage tanks and abandoned landfills also threaten both ground and surface water in the county.

"What troubles me most is the fact that this type of censorship is going on," said Eric Wingerter, national field director of PEER. The organization is made up of local, state and federal environmental professionals across the country.
Wingerter explained that he hopes releasing this report will make Ingham County residents knowledgeable about the potential dangers its water resources are facing.

The Health Department’s water report does address Leaking Underground Storage Tanks (LUSTs), which are 10,000 gallon gasoline storage tanks buried under gas station pumps. The section explains that 25 percent of the 1,900 LUSTs in Ingham County are leaking—281 are in some stage of remediation and 208 have been cleaned up. Most businesses responsible for the leaking storage tanks are gas stations.
But what the report neglects to portray is the potential immediate effect these petroleum-leaking tanks will have on Ingham County’s water supply, as explained in the PEER report. LUSTs have the potential to leak benzene and volatile organic compounds into the county’s drinking water.
Robert Godbold, director of the department’s Bureau of Environmental Health, refused to comment on the PEER-issued report. At a conference for health professionals in August, Godbold would not say what information was left on the cutting-room floor.
The longer report focuses on a wide span of issues affecting our surface and groundwater supply that the smaller report doesn’t. A few examples of what can be found follows:

Motor Wheel: Follow-up health studies of the Motor Wheel site were never conducted, as promised to nearby residents. The north Lansing area listed as a Superfund site by the Environmental Protection Agency leaked high levels of vinyl chloride (a carcinogen) and ammonia into the Saginaw Aquifer, the underground water source for most of Ingham County. The Lansing Board of Water and Light has been forced to shut down nine underground water wells as a result.

Contaminated wells: Some wells showed high levels of arsenic, barium, antimony, nickel and boron. About 41 perrcent of them were high in coliform bacteria.

Growing Grand River: In the past 65 years, the river has grown 25 percent, which some scientists say was caused by deforestation, urban sprawl and the loss of wetlands. The result could mean more floods. Farm runoff and pesticides have been found in the river, which have "seriously impaired" the river, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Both reports recommend that residents have their water checked if they have a private well.
(See Brian McKenna’s column for more on this story.)