US resumes hazardous waste shipments to Michigan landfill from Ohio

VAN BUREN TOWNSHIP, Mich. — A federal agency said it has resumed sending hazardous waste to a Michigan landfill from Ohio as communities in suburban Detroit continue their waste disposal legal battle against waste from a World War II site in New York.

The US Army Corps of Engineers sent material from Luckey, Ohio, where beryllium, a toxic metal, was found. produced for weapons and other uses after the Second World War.

The efforts stalled last week when a Detroit judge signed an order temporarily freezing plans for the landfill to accept low-level radioactive waste from Lewiston, New York.

Wayne County Judge Kevin Cox modified his order Tuesday to limit the decision to Lewiston and clarify any ambiguities. The next hearings are scheduled for early October.

Wayne Disposal in Van Buren Township, 25 miles west of Detroit, is one of the few landfills in the U.S. that can handle certain hazardous waste.

“We have resumed safely shipping materials” from Ohio to Michigan, said Avery Schneider, an Army Corps spokesman.

Republic Services, which operates the Michigan landfill, said it meets or exceeds regulations for safely managing hazardous materials.

Nothing has been sent to Michigan from New York yet. Spoiled soil in Lewiston is a legacy of the Manhattan Project, the secret government project to develop atomic bombs during World War II.