ROCKFORD, MI — Wolverine World Wide is distributing bottled water to homes near Rockford High School as part of an expanding investigation into historical tannery waste dumping that has contaminated the Plainfield Township groundwater.
Credible reports of past liquid hazardous waste disposal have led investigators to two neighborhoods on private well water, said Abigail Hendershott, acting remediation division supervisor in the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Grand Rapids office.
Homes on Rezen Drive and Rezen Court NE, as well as homes near the 6900 block of Childsdale Ave. NE are being tested for the same tannery waste chemicals that are confirmed in drinking water wells elsewhere in Plainfield Township.
Hendershott said the DEQ began investigating the neighborhoods as suspected Wolverine dump sites after being contacted independently by several area property owners who gave similar accounts of "trucks dumping some sort of liquid there, historically."
In the 1960s, Wolverine disposed of tannery waste at a 76-acre landfill at 1855 House Street NE.
Hendershott said Wolverine is testing water on Rezen Drive though a consultant, but the DEQ is testing the Childsdale area wells.
Hendershott said that past landowners may have given Wolverine approval to dump at the new sites are under investigation.
The DEQ asked the public to help identify dump sites by calling 1-800-662-9278 with firsthand accounts of tannery waste disposal.
The DEQ is getting "hundreds of calls" about sites, and is trying to prioritize ones where there’s indication liquid waste disposal may have contaminated the groundwater.
Test results are expected back this week from East Rockford Middle School, which switched to bottled water on Oct. 12 as a precautionary move when tannery waste was discovered nearby on Ramsdell Drive NE.