By Scott Sullivan
Editor
Douglas notified residents Dec. 5 debris removal at the former Haworth plant site, 200 Blue Star Hwy., was set to start Monday, Dec. 18, and last three days.
Joint project consultants William & Works and PM Environmental will discuss project progress at a public information meeting Tuesday, Dec. 19, in city hall, 86 Center St., from 6 to 8 p.m.
Presented and discussed will be progress towards long-term goals and cleaning up the 7.18 acres at city’s southern gateway. Add the demolished Kalico Kitchen at the next westside Blue Star corner and it’s a strip city leaders want to tidy up, then redevelop.
Next Tuesday’s hearing is another step toward fulfilling U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requirements towards releasing $500,000 n in Brownfield Redevelopment grant dollars. Douglas has pledged its own $500,000 match.
The 200 Blue Star site has sat for two years under rubble remnants from Melching Demolition’s $77,800 razing of its 150,300-square-foot, single-story industrial building with 15 truck bays, plus two utility buildings, during December 2021. Asbestos abatement was included.
Subsequent test findings showed 120 feet of the plant’s north wall, built from concrete masonry blocks, contained enough PCBs that the EPA might require hauling them directly to a hazardous waste landfill “at much greater cost to the city,” Melching told council in January 2022.
As a stopgap that March, Douglas paid the firm $39,200 to cover the suspect blocks in plastic while awaiting more test results.
EPA-hired Tetra Tech, Inc. of Chicago reported its analysis of the pile, nicknamed locally “the burrito” for its shape, on Oct. 22, 2022.
Then city manager Rich LaBombard apprised the Douglas Brownfield Redevelopment Authority June 8 this year the EPA had directed the city to accept PM’s low bid of $55,000 to oversee that next step of cleanup work.
By Christmas, if all goes by plan, that part too will be safely hauled away.
City Brownfield chair Matt Balmer told The Commercial Record last week progress may look glacial from outside, but inside the grant-process gears keep turning.
“It’s complicated,” he said, “but essential we do things right.”
Building a Sphinx
How did things get this way? That process has been long too.
“The target property,” the city’s work plan, articulated by PM, reads, “was first developed as a fallow orchard with two small structures as early as 1938.
By the 1940s, the property was redeveloped to house an industrial plant serving Chase Manufacturing, whose work included plating, buffing, zinc die casting, metal forming, stamping, phosphatizing and painting metal parts.
One unwelcome outcome was finding trichloroethene (TCE) contamination in surrounding groundwater that exceeded state potability criteria. Want to risk drinking poison? Worse, that underground plume had migrated offsite at least 1,600 feet northwest.
Steps thereafter were taken to contain its spread, but some level of the substance — once used as a de-greasing agent — likely still lies in various concentrations under privately-owned, mostly-vacant land west of the now-gone plant.
Later findings of PCBs — polychlorinated biphenyls, commonly used in industrial and consumer products until being determined carcinogenic in 1976 — added to the toxic mix, not to mention length of cleanup process and eventual final cost.
From 1976 to 2014, 200 Blue Star was owned and occupied by Holland- based Haworth Inc. (formerly Haworth Manufacturing), which used the facility to manufacture furniture.
Since 2014, the site — once the city’s largest private employer and taxpayer, has sat vacant.
Douglas acquired it from Haworth in 2019 for $100,000, well under its estimated value, in return for assuming cleanup responsibilities. The city, unlike a private entity, is eligible for state and federal grants to advance such work.
The expressed long-term vision — an estimated 80,000 square feet of commercial retail and restaurant space over seven two-story buildings, and 52,000 square feet of live-work space over two buildings — remain fluid.
If achieved, said a June 9, 2022 PM document, city placemaking goals of preserving Douglas’s “quaint destination” nature, cand advance as well.
Larger building setbacks, plus landscape improvements per city greenspace and tree ordinances, would be part of the parcel’s rebirth. So would including about 800 feet of bike lane along Blue Star and 700 feet of sidewalk beside Ferry Street.
“We have through September 2025 to meet EPA grant standards,” said Balmer. “That’s for PCBs. We’ll go through EGLE (Michigan’s Environment, Great Lakes and Energy department) for funds to help clean up TCEs.
“The next step,” he went on, “is to see ‘the burrito’ gone.”
“It is important to note,” last week’s email to residents assured, “that while the debris contains some contamination, it has been properly secured onsite in accordance with local, state and federal regulations and does not pose a risk to public health.”
This month’s disposal, it went on, will be handled in the same manner, “with the utmost care …
“The removal process,” the notifce continued, “will be conducted by trained professionals using industry-standard procedures to ensure the safety of both the workers and the surrounding community …
“Out of an abundance of caution, the city’s environmental consultant will be onsite to monitor conditions while work is in progress,” it read.
“In the event that visible dust blows outside of the work area, work on site will stop until appropriate containment measures are implemented.
“Additionally, all equipment used to load and transport the demolition debris will be decontaminated,” the notice said.
The Dev. 19 information session will also be available via zoom. For those who can’t make it, an online survey will be available on the city’s website douglasmi.gov.