An investigation into claims of Agent Orange on CMU's campus has found no direct proof that the chemical lies underground.
Jean Lindley, senior officer for Facilities Management and CMU Police, said she talked to the former supervisor of Facilities Management, the foreman of the grounds crew and a grounds worker from the 1970s in her investigation.
"I did not find any specific evidence that a product named Agent Orange was utilized on campus," Lindley said.
Her investigation took place after CM LIFE spoke with a current Facilities Management worker in late March. The worker had said he helped bury pesticides and herbicides at three locations on and near campus in the early 1970s.
The worker, who wished to remain anonymous, said he had helped bury chemicals, including Agent Orange, at the McRae Farm, CMU's official chemical-burial site 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, two blocks north of Deerfield Road.
The worker said his supervisor, a former Army officer, had purchased Agent Orange at an Army surplus store in Lansing for the CMU grounds in the early '70s.
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 use of Agent Orange was discontinued in 1970 in the United States and banned altogether in 1972 by an act of Congress.
The name Agent Orange derives from the orange identifying bands used on 55-gallon drums in which the product was shipped.
In her investigation, Lindley said she talked with George Stansbury, the former supervisor of her department from the early '70s, now retired and living in Arizona. She said Stansbury provided most of the information she needed and that the former foreman and the grounds worker confirmed Stansbury's report.
Lindley said she did not have the name of the foreman when she talked during a telephone interview on Thursday. The grounds worker she talked to in her investigation still works for Facilities Management, but she said he also wished to remain anonymous and is not the same person who talked with CM LIFE in March.
Stansbury said he had purchased a 55-gallon drum of herbicide for killing grass growing in sidewalk cracks at CMU sometime in the early '70s, Lindley said.
She said the first anonymous source believed the chemical was Agent Orange, but she said Stansbury told her there was no name on the drum marking it as Agent Orange.
"The markings on the drums were hardly visible to read," the anonymous source had said in March. "I remember seeing skull and crossbones, though."
Lindley said Stansbury told her this particular drum of chemicals was stored in the Towers basement for an unknown period of time. Lindley said it could have been stored there for months or years.
"Then it was removed and taken to a shed on the McRae Farm. A company that was certified to dispose chemicals had the product pumped out. It was never used on campus," Lindley said.
She said she does not know the name of the company that removed the chemical or why or when the chemical was removed.
But the anonymous source said CMU did use the chemical he believes to be Agent Orange for weed control before it was banned.
Lindley said Stansbury told her that the 55-gallon drum that had been stored in the Towers basement may have ended up in the McRae Farm burial site after the chemical inside it was removed, but said he isn't sure.
"(Stansbury) spent quite a bit of time trying to locate the barrel but he couldn't find it," Lindley said.
Items buried at the other two sites the anonymous source mentioned include items such as paint cans, tree limbs and grass clippings, but no chemicals, Lindley said.
Radioactive waste, such as radioactive isotopes, from some science departments were also buried at the McRae Farm site in the 1960s. This site is currently undergoing a Risk Assessment by Jennifer Ehlert, safety coordinator for the College of Science and Technology, who is working in conjunction with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission in Lisle, Ill.
"The purpose of my investigation was to put a record in the file that whatever was remembered was on file," Lindley said.
She said she has not spoken with the worker who talked with CM LIFE in March, but will do so "at a later date."
The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has said it would take soil tests from the three CMU burial sites to determine any health risks if a complaint is made about Agent Orange being buried. But Lindley said tests for Agent Orange are not needed.
"That is not my impression," she said.
The anonymous source said he will not file a complaint about Agent Orange being buried at CMU until "I meet with (Lindley) and see what she tells me"