Worker claims dangerous hazardous waste buried at CMU

Hazardous wastes, including what one source alleges is Agent Orange, sit buried in CMU's backyard, on and near the south end of campus.
A Facilities Management worker, who wished to remain anonymous, said he helped bury dangerous pesticides and herbicides at three locations on and near campus in the early 1970s.
"I was one of them who hauled them and buried them, with about 13 or 14 other guys," the worker said. "It was mostly liquid stuff, like Agent Orange used in 'Nam, Assault and a bunch of other weed killers."
Any records of Agent Orange deposits would be handled by Facilities Management, but Jean Lindley, senior officer for Facilities Management and Police, said her office does not have any such documents.
"I don't think anyone does," she said.
She said she had never heard of Agent Orange being buried on campus, "so I'm totally unaware of that being the case."
Jonathon Kujat, coordinator for Environmental and Safety Services, also said he was unaware of Agent Orange burials on campus.
Kujat invited the anonymous source to file a complaint with him.
"We could take soil and ground water samples," he said.
The worker said Tuesday that he told Lindley about the wastes he helped bury and said she told him she would set up a meeting with the worker, herself and Robert Kohrman, dean of the College of Science and Technology.
Lindley said Kohrman can clarify what types of pesticides and herbicides were probably used by CMU. Kohrman was a chemistry professor at CMU in 1968 and was chair of the chemistry department from 1987 to 1992.
A date has not been set for the meeting, but Lindley said "if and when the opportunity is there to meet, we'll clarify it."
Geologist Paul Bucholtz, from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality's Saginaw Bay District Office in Bay City, said he wants the anonymous worker who may have buried Agent Orange at CMU to give him the information.
"We would like, if he wants, to call in an official complaint and then we can act on it," Bucholtz said. "It could be a health risk."
The source said he will wait until after the meeting to possibly call the Michigan DEQ with his report on the buried Agent Orange.
Kohrman said "if asked to attend a meeting, I'd be more than happy to give my knowledge and advice."
Agent Orange is a mixture of 2,4,5-T, trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, and 2,4-D, dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. Kohrman said 2,4,5 -T was probably used by CMU as a weed killer, just as it was used around the country before Agent Orange was banned. Small amounts of dioxins in the 2,4,5-T may have caused health concerns, which led to the ban on Agent Orange, he said.
"I'm sure if they used herbicides in maintaining the grounds over the years, then 2,4,5-T was probably used," he said.
People may still find the other chemical component, 2, 4-D, around today in household chemicals, Kohrman said.
The amount of dioxins in the herbicide were very, very small and the health effects from Agent Orange are still largely being studied and debated, Kohrman said.
The three sites where the Facilities Management worker said he helped bury dangerous pesticides and herbicides include CMU's official chemical-burial site, called The McRae Farm, which includes a filled-in pit south of Lot 64 and west of Lot 63, behind Kelly/Shorts Stadium; under mounds of dirt to the east of train tracks running south of West Campus Drive; and at a site located on Crawford Road.
Jennifer Ehlert, safety coordinator for the College of Science and Technology, said the burial site near the football field was used from 1962 to 1967 to deposit radioactive waste from CMU classrooms. At least six burials occurred during this time.
The mounds near the train tracks are just excess dirt while the Agent Orange deposits are buried under level ground, the worker said.
The site on Crawford Road is about two blocks north from Deerfield Road. It sits on the east side of Crawford, with a cable lying across the site entrance. A sign reads "CMU property. No trespassing."
The mounds' location probably contains between 250 to 300 gallons of Agent Orange buried underneath it, the worker said. He did not know how much was buried at the other two sites.
The worker said the hazardous waste was buried in large drums and five-gallon cans.
Agent Orange was a herbicide that became infamous after U.S. troops used it during the Vietnam War to destroy crops and vegetation cover. It was not the only herbicide sprayed in the war, but, due to its intensified usage, is the most commonly mentioned and blamed for health problems from that era.
The name Agent Orange derives from the orange-identifying bands used on 55-gallon drums in which the product was shipped. Its use in the United States was discontinued in 1970 and an act of Congress in 1972 banned it altogether.
"The markings on the drums were hardly visible to read, except for the Assault," the worker said of the CMU containers. "I remember seeing skull and crossbones though."
CMU used the chemicals for weed control before safety standards were put on them, the worker said. He did not know if the Agent Orange and other wastes were buried before or after Agent Orange was banned.
"I think the university got it before it got banned," he said.
The worker said his manager at the time had served as an Army officer and would purchase the Agent Orange at an Army surplus store in Lansing.
Ehlert said she heard in December that Agent Orange may be buried in the McRae Farm site.
"I had been told, by a gentleman from Facilities Management, of the possibility of Agent Orange at the site," she said.
The Facilities Management worker who told Ehlert of the pesticide is the same worker that requested anonymity from CM LIFE.
In December 1999, the source also showed Ehlert the other two burial sites.
"When I talked with (the source) he didn't seem to want to be involved," Ehlert said. "He implied something goofy had gone on campus and he was to keep his mouth shut. He showed me the sites, and it was the first I had heard of it."
The McRae Farm site contains items such as glass bottles, test tubes containing liquid, clothing, glassware, paper, gloves, tubing and gallon jugs containing liquid.
"The site contains radioactive waste, mainly from professors in the biology, chemistry and physics departments who worked with radioactive isotopes," Ehlert said. "We always knew the waste was there, but at the time of burial, it was legal to do so."
Restrictions on these types of burials were tightened after Congress passed a low-level radioactive act in 1980.
Based on interviews documented in a 1980 Nuclear Regulatory Commission investigation report of the site, one rectangular pit and several trenches were used for the burials. The burial depths varied from slightly more than 4 feet for the trenches to estimates of 17 to 20 feet for the pit.
"At the time of burial, they couldn't plop it all in one place," Ehlert said.
Restrictions at the time called for a minimum distance of 100 feet between burial sites. In addition to the Circular Pit section of the site, there are three other parts to the McRae Farm site, sites A, B and C.
The Circular Pit section is just south of and very close to a cement monument, Ehlert said. The monument sits southwest of Kelly/Shorts Stadium on top of the filled-in pit, which looks like a grassy, open field.
A plaque on top of the monument reads: "Chemical burial site. Do not disturb ground within a 100-yard radius from this monument."
Site A sits in the northeast corner of the gravel student-parking lot behind Kelly/Shorts Stadium. Site B is at the southwest corner of the stadium. Ehlert said the site is not under the seating area of the stadium, but inside the fence line.
Site C is about 100 feet northeast of the monument. Ehlert said the road between the stadium and the gravel-parking lot runs over Site C.
Pam Alloway-Mueller from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission's Region 3 office in Lisle, Ill., said prior to the act that further restricted radioactive materials in 1980, licensees like universities were permitted to bury materials on their own sites.
Alloway-Mueller, a public affairs specialist with the commission, said prior restrictions included that the amount of materials being buried must have contained a low level of radiation, the licensee must have followed the limit on burials in one site, and the licensee must have placed sites at certain designated distances from each other.
"If these restrictions were met, then they did not have to get NRC approval, but they had to maintain records," Alloway-Mueller said.
Now, all low-level radioactive waste, except that derived from North Carolina, goes to a disposal facility in Barnwell, S.C. The commission has gone back to investigate previous burials, including CMU's.
The McRae Farm is currently undergoing a Risk Assessment by Ehlert, who is working in conjunction with the commission. The test will assess the radioactive waste buried on the site.
Ehlert completed an assessment of the McRae Farm in April 1998 and the site passed safety regulations. But last November, Ehlert said she received notice from the commission that the site needed to be reassessed because regulations had become more stringent.
The site is in interim status, Ehlert said, and that she expects the up-to-date test results within the year. The commission determined that the site poses no public-health threat and the results are not required immediately.
If Agent Orange is buried on campus, the campus planner would need to monitor it, Ehlert said.
"An environmental consultant would also certainly need to be talked to, to isolate where these burials would have been," she said. The consultant could do a complete site assessment of the landfills to judge any health risks."
No immediate action is scheduled to investigate the sites, Ehlert said. If a test was used in the near future, CMU Planning and Engineering would handle the testing.
"I don't know why they're not investigating it, especially when they're talking about building out there," the worker said.
He said some site plans for a new CMU baseball stadium and basketball arena are at or near the sites where Agent Orange was buried, specifically near the McRae Farm site and the mounds by the train tracks.
Ehlert said she does not know of any burial records for Agent Orange on campus. Health risks from buried Agent Orange would be difficult to assess, she said.
"It would depend on the quantity and integrity of the containers used. If what is buried is still in its containers then there is no health threat. If containers leaked, it certainly could be a health threat. It would have to be evaluated," Ehlert said.
Many of CMU's faculty who had items deposited in McRae Farm have left the university or are deceased, Lindley said.
If Ehlert and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission were just looking for radioactive materials, their tests would not find proof of Agent Orange, Bucholtz said.
Usually the DEQ will drill for both ground and ground-water samples, he said. For Agent Orange, the department would look for evidence of dioxins, or compounds of the pesticide with results sent to a laboratory for analysis.
If the DEQ tests the campus waste sites and finds harmful Agent Orange, a fine could be placed on CMU, Ehlert said.
"If it got to that point, some kind of fine or site characterization may be ordered. We would have to hire a CMU consultant to see how to clean it up," she said. "A full-scale cleanup would be in the millions of dollars, if it resorted to that," she said.
"Hopefully we can get it cleared up so we don't have to get to that point"