By BRIAN MCGILLIVARY
\nFebruary 01, 2009 12:00 am<\/p>\n
Arsenic contamination was discovered at a proposed park in Peninsula Township weeks before voters approved a $2 million, 10-year tax to pay for the property.
\nBut voters weren’t told of the contamination, and some township residents want to know why the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy — the nonprofit agency that’s facilitating the parkland purchase — withheld that information prior to the Nov. 4 election.<\/p>\n
Engineering firm Otwell-Mawby PC. investigated the site in August, and indicated an existing orchard and two previous orchard sites on the 62-acre parcel just south of McKinley Road might contain contamination from pesticides.<\/p>\n
The firm tested the soil and discovered levels of arsenic above state residential guidelines at all three locations, including more than 10 times over the limit at one site.
\nMichigan Department of Environmental Quality officials recently said they will limit park access and possibly require some site cleanup before they approve the property for passive recreational use.<\/p>\n
One township board member questioned whether the project should continue. “The property was supposed to come to the township with no strings attached, but pollution is a pretty big attachment,” said township Treasurer David Weatherholt. “I wonder what would happen if it came up for a vote today?”<\/p>\n
Arnold Roth said test results should have been released before the Nov. 4 election, when voters approved a 0.4-mill property tax increase to purchase the property. “I would go as far as to say they misled the voters because every article that was written talked about how pristine the property was,” Roth said. “If they are going to have a public park where children play, then I think this is not a good thing.”<\/p>\n
Dave Murphy, who co-chaired the park millage campaign committee, said he had “absolutely no idea” contamination had been discovered before voters agreed to the purchase.
\n“We knew nothing about any of the test results prior to the election,” Murphy said. “If anyone had flagged the area as potentially unhealthy, I would have wanted to back off immediately.”<\/p>\n
The arsenic likely comes from lead arsenate, a commonly used pesticide on old farms. Tests also revealed slightly elevated levels of lead, but well below limits for direct contact set by DEQ. Peninsula Township Supervisor Rob Manigold said he learned of the contamination on election day and wasn’t surprised by the news.
\n“People have to be aware it’s anywhere in northern Michigan on old farm country,” Manigold said. “Heck, our school is built on an old farm, our parks are on old farms and subdivisions are on old farms. It’s always been there, just no one ever tested for it before.”<\/p>\n
Brad Gerlach is a land protection specialist at the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy. He acknowledged he knew about the contamination in mid-October and didn’t share it with Murphy or township officials. “There was nothing in (test results) that suggested there would be a problem with there being a park there,” Gerlach said.
\nHe compared it to Hickory Meadows park, a site obtained by Traverse City that also had farm chemical contamination.<\/p>\n
The proposed Peninsula park area on Center Road includes an active orchard and center meadow that showed arsenic levels at or slightly above 7.7 parts per million, the level allowed for direct contact with the soil in a residential setting. The limit assumes soil will be tracked into a home and inhaled as dust particulate by residents on a regular, long-term basis.<\/p>\n
John Vanderhoof, environmental quality analyst with the DEQ, said the agency likely would allow levels below 23 ppm for passive recreational use, as proposed by Otwell-Mawby. But the DEQ will require some type of barrier to prevent adjoining land owners from using the park as an extension of their yards.
\nThe meadow on the property’s northeast corner exceeds 23 ppm and will require some type of remediation, such as soil removal, covering or other means to prevent contact, he said.<\/p>\n
Gerlach said the Conservancy is working through a variety of remediation options. He did not know potential cleanup costs or who would pay for it.
\nThe Conservancy thus far has paid all expenses, and owns the option to purchase the property.<\/p>\n
Manigold said the township is under no obligation to complete the purchase and will wait for the final DEQ report before making a decision<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By BRIAN MCGILLIVARY February 01, 2009 12:00 am Arsenic contamination was discovered at a proposed park in Peninsula Township weeks before voters approved a $2 million, 10-year tax to pay for the property. But voters weren’t told of the contamination, and some township residents want to know why the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy —… Continue reading Arsenic contamination has some crying foul<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-risk","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrategist.com\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}