“PIERSON — Citizens in Pierson were already anxious about Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) water contamination before they began piling into the public information meeting in Pierson Village Hall on Thursday night.

Many of them left still feeling uneasy.

‘We’re walking out of here not knowing (not knowing) much more than we knew when walking in here,’ Pierson resident Brad Brewer said.Many of them left still feeling uneasy.

The Michigan Department of Environment Quality (DEQ) called the meeting after finding high levels of PFAS in five monitoring wells around Central Sanitary Landfill, located at 21545 W. Cannonsville Road…

The highest PFAS level of the monitoring wells surrounding Central Sanitary Landfill reached 250 parts-per-trillion.

Footwear manufacturers Wolverine World Wide had previously disposed their sludge at the Central Sanitary Landfill for decades, which is believed to have contributed to the high PFAS levels.

Republic Services currently owns the landfill. Republic General Manager Todd Harland told Pierson residences that, in the next couple of days, a representative from their company would go door-to-door to all houses and businesses located within one square mile of the landfill, handing out bottled water and testing their private wells for PFAS…

The DEQ mentioned that they planned to install new monitoring wells around the landfill that would inform them if PFAS began migrating away and at what concentration. Going forward, they hope to better determine where the groundwater flow that is occurring west of the landfill is going.”

Read the full article by Brandon Schreur