Paradise is Leaking

The sapphire blue and emerald green of Lake Superior, below an ancient sand dune in the middle of Paradise Michigan, is mixing with reds, oranges and black chemicals, leaching from the dune. The now infamous Paradise leak has been spitting into the pure waters of Lake Superior in plain sight for decades.

A small group of residents have spent the last ten years assimilating all they can about mercury and lead and chromium, and petroleum based fluids (LNAPLS) and PFAS and salt contamination. And the residents have learned the hard and disappointing lesson of working with government people who do not care and who walk away.

Bridget Nodurft and some friends realized that they had a significant chemical dump across the street from the Whitefish Schools, next to the community hall and across from a parsonage. The land and dump had been owned and used by the Chippewa County Road Commission. No one disputes who owns the responsibility for creating the dump.

But Nodurft’s group, the Paradise Brownfield Remediation Initiative (PBRI), thought that they and the reasonable people who oversaw pollution like this could stop it, and end the threat to their village and a significant native commercial fishing area. They contacted EGLE, which in 2004 acknowledged that the site was contaminated and leaking, and after ignoring requests to solve it declared years later that the site was “orphaned.” That sad term actually means EGLE doesn’t think anyone owns the buried dump and therefore nothing can be done. EPA, meanwhile acknowledged that the site was the Road Authority’s problem.

Sierra joined the fray in 2019. The Three-Lakes Group has met with Bridget Nodurft and her group and promised to help. 

The road authority has now switched from its earlier agreement to seek funding for a cleanup to throwing the responsivity back on Whitefish Township, and crucially, refused to apply for a brownfield remediation grant.

The people of Paradise sought other help. EGLE turned mute, in their terms. Earlier this year they sent a letter to Michigan’s Attorney General to assign Part 201 liability For the Road Authority’s contamination site and to enforce NERPA regulations. It has gone unanswered despite follow-up calls. Subsequent appeals to the Michigan Governor, the Michigan Public Advocate for Environmental Justice, Senator Stabenow, and Senator Peters have either been ignored or met with a cursory return telephone call and no assistance, according to the citizen’s group.