From Love Canal to Lovers Lane

Guest at the Comstock Park Rotary meeting Thursday was Jeff Lippert with the Environmental Protection Agency's Emergency Response Team.  The Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA) was created after the New York Love Canal inccident.  The canal had been used as a Municipal and Industrial chemical dumping site that created all types of illnesses and birth defect when a housing development was built over top of the dumping grounds.  The EPA was created and has been active cleaning up contaminated sites across the country.  That brought Jeff and the EPA to Lovers Lane in Comstock Park where over 5,000 car battery casings were uncovered that contaminated the ground as well as drinking water.

Tuesday, the EPA released the following statement:

(July 11, 2012, Chicago) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has finished removing lead-contaminated soil and battery casings from a house located on Lovers Lane in rural Plainfield Township, Kent County, Michigan.

EPA closed two drinking wells, laid plastic sheeting underneath the home’s crawl space, and placed grass seed, fertilizer, and hay on new, clean soil. EPA also replaced shrubs, trees, and plants that were uprooted.

EPA's cleanup came in response to a request from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality. In December 2011, EPA conducted a site study and documented that battery casings were present throughout the property.

For information, please contact Dave Novak, EPA community involvement coordinator, at 312-802-0680.

The Comstock Park Rotary was pleased Jeff Lippert was willing and able to come to their meeting and to inform the members about the good work this federal agency does.

In other Rotary business, Alex Arends, Alpine Township Supervisor, was sworn in as the new President of the Comstock Park Rotary.  Alex replaces Dick Woodward, Pastor of Comstock Park Congregational Church, whose term expired.



Pastor Dick Woodward passes gavel on to Alex Arends