An on-line tool provided by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) enables Michiganders to identify and map sites of environmental contamination in their neighborhoods or across the state.
Called the Ride Mapper (an acronym for Remediation Information Data Exchange), the interactive tool displays as of January 15 of this year a variety of information on 18,357 of the state’s contamination sites and 6,586 leaking underground storage tank sites, including contaminated residential, industrial, business and recreational sites and more.
It also allows users to see which sites in their communities have been declared too contaminated for drinking water and/or soil contact. There are 4,587 such restrictions across Michigan.
The map display tells a story.
Michigan continues to face major risks and costs from decades of negligent, improper or illegal handling of chemicals and petroleum. Despite the spending of over $1 billion of state taxpayer money on contamination cleanup over the past 40 years, the number of known contaminated sites is greater than it was in the 1980s as these sites are identified. Many of these sites are considered “orphan,” meaning there is no viable private party to pick up the tab for cleanup – leaving taxpayers holding the bag.
By the numbers
18,357
contaminated sites in Michigan
6,586
leaking underground tanks
FLOW has been particularly concerned about the 4,587 land use restrictions in the state. These sites have been rendered unusable for drinking water and/or other uses because of contamination that state law no longer requires to be cleaned up. At some sites where contamination remains in place, schools, offices and residences have been evacuated because of concerns about health risks.
FLOW recently teamed with the Institute of Water Research at Michigan State University to examine the costs of these so-called ‘institutional controls” and released a report with recommendations on curbing their use.
