“BELMONT, MI — Mark Worrall knew where to look.

Worrall, a state geologist, told his superiors at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality in April 2017 that drinking water in homes southeast of Wolverine World Wide’s now-infamous House Street sludge dump should be tested for toxic chemicals.

Instead of heeding the expert advice, emails obtained by MLive show DEQ supervisors did not act on the warning until a coincidence forced investigators to accelerate a slow-moving investigation into groundwater contaminated by Wolverine waste.

When properties Worrall identified were tested months later, one home’s drinking water was so contaminated the results flabbergasted state toxicologists and health experts…

By that time, Wolverine had been testing for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances called PFAS or PFCs in Belmont for almost four months. Wolverine started testing homes on the northeast side of the old dump site in April, but, despite Worrall’s advice to look south, testing in the highly-polluted areas didn’t occur until July…

Jack McNaughton lives about 2,500 feet south of the House Street dump. He’s almost 2 years old and his young blood is loaded with PFAS — about 484,000-ppt.

His home was on Worrall’s April list. It was tested Sept. 14.

‘In his short life, he would have had so much less water’ if the PFAS threat was disclosed earlier, said Jack’s father, Seth McNaughton…

O’Donnell and John Pawloski with DEQ Grand Rapids district remediation division had never heard of House Street until January 2017 despite years of involvement with Wolverine dating back to 2010, when the Rockford tannery was demolished.

Emails show that O’Donnell — who was promoted at DEQ last fall — allowed Wolverine attorneys to draft talking points for DEQ to use when speaking with homeowners, as well as written communication about the investigation that was subsequently distributed to House Street residents under state of Michigan letterhead…

Because Wolverine was acting under a voluntary program in the state’s Part 201 toxic cleanup law, DEQ allowed the company to keep its name out of early public notifications. O’Donnell even refrained from naming the company in many internal emails, opting for euphemisms like ‘the owner’ or ‘the PLP’ (potentially liable party).”

Read the full article by Garret Ellison.