Contact:
Carrie La Seur, FLOW Legal Director
carrie@flowforwater.org
(231) 944-1568
Traverse City, Mich.— The nonprofit law and policy center For Love of Water (FLOW) and its allies Detroit Riverkeeper, Friends of the Detroit River, the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club, and Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, have successfully petitioned for a Public Health Assessment for the community of Wyandotte, Michigan in relation to ongoing toxic discharges from the BASF (Badische Anilin und Soda Fabrik, Germany’s largest chemical company) facilities located on the Detroit River.
The petition was made on February 29, 2024 to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), the federal environmental public health agency under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. On November 19, 2024, ATSDR accepted the petition and ordered that the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) conduct the assessment.
This is an important victory for the community of Wyandotte, which has experienced toxic dumping and contamination from BASF Wyandotte for over 60 years. BASF has continuously and repeatedly discharged hazardous wastes – with and without permits – into the Upper Trenton Channel of the Detroit River, near Wyandotte’s municipal water intake.
Officials, agencies, and citizen groups have sounded the alarm about the BASF facilities since 1980. In a July 2022 letter, U.S. Representative Debbie Dingell called upon U.S. EPA Region 5 to address pollution violations by BASF Wyandotte, noting “reports of alarming rates of contamination release” entering the Detroit River and that BASF has been under an EPA Administrative Order on Consent for cleanup since 1994 – which it has not fulfilled. According to a November 2021 brief from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), “Contaminant concentrations exceed water quality standards, including final acute values, at multiple locations.”
FLOW Legal Director Carrie La Seur, the author of the petition, said: “While much more needs to be done, and quickly, to end toxic discharges from BASF Wyandotte to the Detroit River, this is an encouraging sign that state and federal agencies are willing to act to protect the health of southwest Detroit.”
The Wyandotte Public Health Assessment will be a comprehensive review of all available data about chemical contamination originating from BASF and the impact on public health. Through this process, the public will gain crucial information about the human health risks related to BASF’s discharges to the soil, air, and water, and how those hazards can be stopped or reduced. This is an important step towards holding the German multinational chemical producer accountable for releasing toxic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic substances into Michigan’s environment.
