Toxic Michigan site a “cautionary tale” as environmental funding is under threat

ST. LOUIS, Mich. — As a boy, Gary Smith would ride his bike with friends down a dirt road to a pit used by a chemical company to incinerate hazardous waste.

“It was a place to throw stuff, look around,” he said on an overcast May afternoon overlooking the pit site. “I know a few people that would hunt here … this is where they’d get their deer every year.”

Now that burn pit is part of a 1.5 acre scar in the landscape that provides enduring evidence of how extensively industrial pollution can wreak lasting harm throughout a community, even after decades of cleanup efforts.

The federal government has been working with state and local officials for decades to reverse the harm caused by the Michigan Chemical Corporation, later named the Velsicol Chemical Corporation, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on mitigation efforts after toxics generated at the plant spread through the community of 7,400 people and far beyond. The plant closed in 1978 but the pollution persisted.

Last year, the Biden Administration earmarked additional funds for ongoing cleanup activities targeting the continued presence of hazardous DDT, a long-banned pesticide, and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs), an ingredient in flame retardants. 

Despite this influx of federal funds, a new study released in April underscores the long legacy of persistent contaminants. Researchers found evidence that exposure to PBB made at the plant raised the risks of breast cancer, miscarriages and other health problems, and that the pollution will continue to impact the lives and health of grandchildren and great-grandchildren of people exposed long ago.

The findings come as the Trump administration is rolling back many environmental protection laws, drawing criticism from citizen groups and public health advocates who say deregulation will allow for more pollution and endanger more lives.

“Our community is a cautionary tale,” said Jane (Keon) Jelenek, an author and local expert on the cleanup who is the secretary of a citizen task force that monitors the government cleanup efforts.

Generational impacts

The poisoning was a long time in the making. Velsicol produced an array of chemical compounds and products at its 54-acre site in St. Louis from 1936 to 1978 along the banks of the Pine River. In addition to polluting the land and river with DDT, in 1973 one of the company’s products, a flame retardant containing PBB, was mistakenly added to livestock feed for cows, chickens, geese and hogs. The feed was distributed to farms across the state.

Cows across the state started experiencing cascading health issues — including decreased appetite and milk production; birth defects; abnormal hooves, hair and skin; weight loss and sterility.

In 1976, public health officials from the state of Michigan started the “Michigan Long-Term PBB Study cohort” to track the health of three groups: farmers or people who ate PBB-contaminated food, later generations of people whose parents were PBB-exposed, and workers from the Velsicol plant where the chemicals were produced. The cohort includes about 7,500 people across the state of Michigan, including the children and grandchildren of the original participants. Emory University took over the study cohort in 2012.

The review released in April culled through 79 studies of the cohort to understand the main health impacts over the past 50 years. Among the findings was evidence that people exposed to PBB via breast milk or through the placenta while developing in the womb suffer from more health problems than those that ate contaminated meat, eggs and dairy or other foods, or worked at the plant.

“Our community is a cautionary tale.” – Jane (Keon) Jelenek

Researchers found increased breast cancer risk for highly exposed women, and decreased levels of crucial hormones for women who were exposed during childhood. One study suggested highly exposed women were about 2.5 times more likely to have breast cancer than those with low or no exposure.

But many of the most prominent impacts were found in people whose parents had consumed the pollutants. Women born to exposed parents, for example, had increased risk of earlier puberty and periods, and miscarriages. For example, one study found that women who breastfed from mothers with high PBB exposure had their first period nearly a year earlier than women who were not breastfed by their mothers. Men born to exposed parents had increased risk of problems with genital development. Since PBB can cross the placenta and binds to fat (so it would show up in breast milk), these two groups were likely directly exposed.

“The experience of this unique cohort adds to the growing evidence that effects of endocrine-disrupting chemicals – and environmental exposures generally – depend both on the dose and timing of exposure relative to developmental windows, with the most damaging effects resulting from exposures during fetal development and before puberty,” the authors wrote.

If someone is exposed as an adult, there are “fewer hormonal changes going on in their bodies,” so the health effects may not be as pronounced as those exposed as children, said John Kaufman, an epidemiologist who co-authored the study as a Ph.D. student at Emory University.

There is also an epigenetic effect, which refers to changes in how genes are expressed. These changes can be passed down generations, leaving people susceptible to health issues even if they were never exposed to the toxic culprit that caused the changes in the first place.

“Over the last five to seven years, we’ve looked at changes in gene expression [in the cohort] and while the research is limited, so far it does seem that those exposed as teenagers or children have more impacts to gene expression,” Kaufman said.

Compounding the contamination and health hazards, DDT and its breakdown compounds — known to cause breast cancer, diabetes, fertility issues and developmental problems in children and also produced at the Velsicol plant — have extensively contaminated the Pine River, the riverbanks and flood plains.

“They’ve taken out tons of contamination but the frustrating thing is how long this takes,” said Ed Lorenz, a retired professor of history and political science at nearby Alma College. “You know there are still exposures and there’s always a worry there’s a little left where they’ve remediated.”

Long-running mess

The burn pit Smith rode his bike to as a youth is now tucked between fairways on the Hidden Oaks Golf Course. The central feature of the pit is a cement cap covering about an acre with pipes sticking out of it, part of a treatment system that removed more than 274,000 pounds of contamination from the ground over the past few years by heating and vaporing polluted dirt and water and hauling some off-site.

“It does seem that those exposed as teenagers or children have more impacts to gene expression.” – John Kaufman, epidemiologist

Smith, a retired, lifelong St. Louis resident, no longer pokes around the former burn pit out of a child’s curiosity. Now, at 74, he routinely checks on the site to make sure the federal government and their contractors are making progress in cleaning up one of the worst and longest-running toxic messes in the country.

In 1998, Smith co-founded the Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force, which started out as an attack dog pleading with the state and feds to clean up their community and has evolved into a community voice that is in near-constant contact with those responsible for cleanup.

On a recent day, Smith drove his white Ford F-150 through the neighborhood that borders the former plant site. Workers buzzed around, wearing yellow vests and hard hats as they maneuvered large equipment.

Years ago, crews dug up the yards of residents in a 12-block area near the former plant after complaints about birds dropping dead and the discovery of high levels of DDT. Though large amounts of soil were removed, Smith is skeptical about the thoroughness of the remediation efforts.

“Over the years the state and federal agencies talked about different stakeholders in the area … including themselves,” he said, adjusting his gray and tan Grand Canyon cap. “They are not the stakeholders, we’re the stakeholders.”

He also has ongoing concerns about the impacts of the pollution on the Pine River, saying that Velsicol had done some remediation at the site and river but did a poor job.

“They [Velsicol] left a bunch of shit in the river,” Smith said.

The DDT findings helped kickstart more federal help and river cleanup starting in 1998, and DDT levels in fish have dropped an estimated 98%. But the advisories remain in place.

David Shark, an EPA spokesperson, said they are still removing 20,000 gallons per week of contaminated water from the river. The town changed its drinking water source, and crews continue to treat and remove dirt at the plant site and at the burn pit. But the pollutants wind their way through the area’s unique geology, and seep into groundwater, complicating cleanup.

Shark said a dense, oily liquid containing DDT metabolites and other pesticides was the main hazardous pollutant on the plant site and the burn pit, but over the last eight years more than 675,000 pounds of contaminated vapor, water and the oily liquid were removed from the sites, leaving “no concerning hotspots.”

One of this summer’s main projects is construction of a metal wall between the former plant site and the Pine River, designed to stop any remaining pollution from flowing from the site into the river. On a recent May afternoon, workers maneuvered a massive auger dangling from a crane to help drive in pilings for the wall.

Smith watched the crane with skepticism. “I’m worried about that mound of dirt between the old wall and the new wall,” he said, referring to a failed slurry wall that Velsicol had installed decades earlier. Velsicol filed for bankruptcy in 1978 so taxpayers have paid for the bulk of the cleanup.

Funding in jeopardy

The site has had steady funding through the federal Superfund program, with a massive boost from the Biden administration’s Infrastructure Law over the past couple years. However, the future of EPA staff and funding are in jeopardy under the Trump administration, which calls for a $254 million cut to Superfund funding in its 2026 budget. This cut is part of a broader aim of a 55% reduction in the agency’s budget — the largest proposed cut to the agency’s budget ever —  that critics say will “cripple” its ability to clean up sites like the one in St. Louis.

“This is a reckless and short-sighted proposal that will lead to higher levels of toxic pollution in the air we breathe and water we drink across the nation,” Michelle Roos, executive director of the Environmental Protection Network, said in a statement.

Shark said the EPA has mapped out the remaining work in St. Louis, but “funding actions are an unknown variable, and a traditional timeline [for total cleanup] cannot be applied precisely.” He said the agency estimates anywhere from 8 to 15 years to complete the remaining cleanup at the main plant site, but did not give a timetable for the burn pit or river.

“This is a reckless and short-sighted proposal that will lead to higher levels of toxic pollution in the air we breathe and water we drink across the nation,” Michelle Roos, Environmental Protection Network

The budget reductions are part of a broader strategy of deregulation at the agency and across the federal government, including reducing rules for other more modern pollutants that behave like PBB and DDT, lingering in the environment and linked to cancers and hormonal problems. The EPA, for example, will rescind limits set under President Biden in April 2024 on four types of PFAS found in drinking water.

Susan Hoffman, who was co-author of the recent review of health impacts in St. Louis during her Ph.D. studies at Emory University, said that while their research focused mostly on the long-banned PBB, it offers insight into other similar chemicals.

“Whether it’s older chemicals like PBBs banned for years, or newer flame retardants or PFAS, every day people are exposed to these chemicals through products they use, their workplaces, the food they eat,” Hoffman said. “PBB is a unique chemical in some ways – but serves as a model for multi-generation impacts from other chemicals.”

Financial and emotional toll

Residents have expressed gratitude for the government cleanup efforts, but wish for public assistance for health care.

“PBB is a unique chemical in some ways – but serves as a model for multi-generation impacts from other chemicals.” -Susan Hoffman, epidemiologist

St. Louis city manager Kurt Giles said he is not aware of any current or former efforts to offer clinical or health care support to any of the impacted residents.

Former resident Jim Hall, who grew up a few blocks from the chemical plant, has no direct evidence that the health problems that devastated his family are connected to the plant. But he believes they are. Not only was his childhood home close to the facility, but his grandparents, whom he’d often stay with, lived even closer. Hall delivered newspapers and mowed lawns in his youth — often riding his bicycle through, or pushing a mower through, dust generated by the facility.

“I remember the trucks rolling by with this dust coming off them and they were delivering it out to the landfill,” said Hall, who no longer lives in the community.

In 2003, Hall’s wife gave birth to a daughter with multiple health problems. The girl, who they named Jerra, suffered from neuromuscular scoliosis and a rare heart defect, dying at the age of two.

In 2013, blood testing offered by Emory University found high PBB levels in Hall’s blood, he said. The testing came five years after Hall found a lump in his throat while driving and later had lumps removed from his thyroid.

“There’s research about what this stuff can do and how it can create birth defects and miscarriages and everything else and how the father can pass it on,” he said. “With my numbers it makes a greater chance that something like that could have happened.”

Hall said the medical bills overwhelmed him but the emotional toll is more costly.

“I literally spent thousands of dollars just on the financial side, but how much did it cost emotionally?” he asked. “You can’t put a price on burying your daughter, you can’t put a price on holding her when she takes her last breath.”

“Where all my memories are”

Many in the community have grown weary of worrying about — and talking about — the contamination and the cleanup, and are looking to the future.

Giles, the city manager, expressed optimism that “there is an end in sight in the not too distant future” for the cleanup, and said the city is looking to extend a riverwalk along the Pine River once pollution containment is finished.

Smith would like to see an amphitheater on the former plant site and have bands — preferably blues bands — play along the riverfront.

Jelenek, who has written two books about the contamination and cleanup efforts, is also hopeful. She has deep roots here along the Pine River, with family ties going back to the mid-1800s.

“There’s been a lot of work done,” she said, standing just outside the entrance to the former Velsicol plant site. “We’re hoping we’re in the home stretch.”

Near Jelenek sits a bench put in by the Citizen Task Force bearing an engraved, weathered message:

“We declare our mutual aim. That our river and land be restored to their natural condition. Safe for any use.”

Hall, too, is still fond of St. Louis and gets back every so often. His daughter’s grave lies in a cemetery there.

“It’s home,” he said. “That’s where all my memories are.”

Featured image: Gary Smith, a founding member of Pine River Superfund Citizen Task Force, next to the entrance to the Velsicol Superfund site. (Credit: Brian Bienkowski/The New Lede)