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A creepy green ooze that began to spread across a Detroit-area freeway more than a week ago has led to a full-scale battle to secure a deteriorating building that once housed a plating company.
The green slime shut down a lane of I-696 in Madison Heights on December 20th.
Testing revealed a number of contaminants, notably hexavalent chromium, which causes cancer.
The trail led back to the former Electro-Plating Services Company building. Electro-Plating Services was ordered closed in late 2016 because of mis-handled contaminants. The Environmental Protection Agency spent $1.5 million over six months in 2017 to perform a preliminary cleanup.
Officials now believe that water coming through the building’s leaky roof washed more chemicals into a catch basin beneath the building, creating the ooze that eventually made its way to the nearby freeway.
On Friday, state officials said that tests had revealed elevated levels of hexavalent chromium in nearby wells, but that the contamination thinned quickly farther away. Municipal drinking water for the area comes from Lake Saint Clair, and is not affected.
Monitoring will continue, as officials decide how to handle the disaster, and who will pay for it.
The owner of Electro Plating Services, Gary Sayers, recently pleaded guilty to pollution violations. He has been ordered to pay the cost of the $1.5 million initial cleanup, and will begin a one-year sentence in federal prison next month.
See more about the clean-up here.
