Rexair, DEQ ready to settle contamination case

CADILLAC - Both the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and Rexair in Cadillac want to solve a dispute of groundwater contamination.

However, the two groups may not have the same methods in mind for resolving that conflict.

On behalf of the DEQ, the Attorney General's office filed two motions in Ingham County Circuit Court on June 24. One asks the court to appoint an "Expert Special Master Panel," a group which would determine if a trichloroethylene or TCE plume escaped Rexair's capture system and if that plume contaminated the city of Cadillac's Municipal Well Field.

The second motion asks Judge Beverly Nettles-Nickerson to determine if Rexair failed to fully capture and remove its entire plume of contamination as required in a March 1991 Consent Judgment.

Steve Cunningham with the DEQ Cadillac office said the two motions are tied together, the first to determine a violation and the second to offer an unbiased solution.

The 1991 judgment came after TCE was discovered and traced to Rexair. The company was required to capture and remove its entire plume of contamination. According to the DEQ, the plume escaped Rexair's capture wells and contaminated the city's municipal well field.

Since then, a number of environmental consultants have examined the contamination with varying results. To this day, Rexair continues to operate its purge well system, said Rexair legal counsel Leigh Taggart.

A similar motion for dispute resolution was withdrawn by the DEQ at the urging of the judge because of procedural problems.

"The debate has not gotten to an analysis of the data because its been bogged down with procedural problems," Cunningham said.

While Rexair is interested in resolving the dispute, Taggart said the company is unsure if an independent panel is the appropriate action.

"The DEQ has proposed or seems to have proposed a process to try to resolve the dispute," Taggart said. "I can't comment on the process they have suggested but obviously Rexair is interested in resolving the dispute if we can."

Taggart said the motion for dispute resolution suggest the DEQ is "very interested in moving forward" with resolving the problem.

For Cunningham and the DEQ, the two motions are aimed at keeping the process very "scientific and fair."

"We thought this was a way to do that beyond any question," Cunningham said.

"If they are interested in moving ahead and resolving the dispute, we are interested in doing that as we've always been," Taggart said.