By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

FENNVILLE, Mich. — Lawyers have descended on southwestern Michigan to take up the cause of residents in several communities who are blaming local food processors for their well contamination problems.

“In our specific area of Fennville, we have about 148 homes that are in the plume area,” said Kari Craton, a resident and unofficial spokeswoman for other residents. “The plume area keeps moving. That’s what happens when nothing is done about it.”

Craton wouldn’t say much else and couldn’t be reached at other times. She said that Erin Brockovich – the environmental activist portrayed in the movie starring Julia Roberts – was in Fennville that day and was planning on being in Paw Paw the next day, where residents have some similar complaints.

The plume in question is an area of contaminated groundwater that residents and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) believe is caused by food processors’ practice of discharging their untreated wastewater onto fields. The plant in Fennville is owned by Bird’s Eye and the one in Paw Paw, a few miles away, is owned by Coca- Cola North America (CCNA); CCNA makes Minute Maid products.

According to a DEQ document obtained from its website, food processors have typically disposed of their wastewater by either spraying it on the ground or by storing it in a lagoon. In some instances the water was given little or no treatment prior to being released back into the environment.

“In the past, it was thought that such systems were a viable means of wastewater disposal for the food processing industry. However, in the last several years, groundwater monitoring results have shown that these systems may negatively impact groundwater due to the characteristics of the wastewater,” the document states.

It goes on to state the persistent discharge of untreated wastewater ends up dislodging naturally occurring metals from the soil and that excessive amounts of the metals are ending up in the water table. They include metals such as iron, manganese and arsenic.

According to another DEQ document found on the department’s website, the DEQ and CCNA entered into a voluntary agreement called an administrative consent order in September 2000, to “establish a schedule for CCNA to terminate the groundwater discharge and design a treatment system to discharge to surface water under an National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. The construction of the treatment system was completed in accordance with this consent order.”

CCNA provided Farm World with a statement on the wastewater issue. It reads, in part: “In late 2002, the Paw Paw plant transitioned from treatment and discharge of its wastewater via an on-site spray field, authorized by a permit issued by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, to secondary
treatment of the wastewater and then discharge to a nearby surface body of water under another permit issued by MDEQ.

“We built a $7 million state-of-the-art on-site water reclamation or wastewater treatment plant, which uses advanced biological treatment technology. Since then, Coca-Cola has invested an additional $3.5 million to upgrade our wastewater treatment process.”

Donna Halinski, a spokeswoman for CCNA, said that the company has always followed whatever process the DEQ required of it. She wouldn’t say much more than that, other than the written statement.

“Coca-Cola has been threatened with lawsuits,” Halinski said. “Because of the threats, we can’t have anyone speak to the media.”

She added that most recently, Coca- Cola filed a remediation investigation report to the state.

“That’s part of a process required by the DEQ,” Halinski said.
Several telephone calls and e-mail messages left with DEQ were not returned as of press time.