County Board Votes To Aid Dioxane Action

IN BRIEF

County board votes to aid dioxane action

The Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Wednesday to assist the city of Ann Arbor in any efforts necessary - including legal action - to ensure the cleanup of 1,4 dioxane in area groundwater.

After discussing the issue in a closed session, the board approved a resolution that authorizes the county administration and county lawyers to “work cooperatively with the city of Ann Arbor to insure that Pall Life Sciences properly remediates the 1,4 dioxane” and to “take appropriate legal action to protect Washtenaw County’s interests in this matter.”

The Ann Arbor City Council approved a similar resolution Tuesday.

Wednesday’s vote is the second on the subject for county board members. On Feb. 5, the board approved spending $30,000 on legal fees regarding the remediation efforts

Dioxane was used by Gelman Sciences to make medical filters before the Scio Township company was bought by Pall Corp. in 1997. Gelman stored wastewater containing dioxane in unlined lagoons and sprayed it over lawns at the company’s Wagner Road facility until the mid-1980s. That disposal was legal at the time. But in 1985, the dioxane turned up in residential wells and in 2001 contaminated west Ann Arbor’s Montgomery municipal well, which was taken offline.

And tests of the underground water show the 1,4-dioxane contamination has since spread, causing local officials to worry about whether it threatens the area’s water supply.

Pall Life Sciences faces a court-ordered cleanup deadline of July 2005.