Citizen sleuths exposed pollution from a century-old Michigan factory, with nationwide implications

By Sara Talpos May 16, 2019 , 2:00 PM

ROCKFORD, MICHIGAN—For more than a century, a sprawling tannery here on the banks of the Rogue River churned out leather used to make some of the country's most popular shoes. The factory emitted a putrid stink, but it enabled this city of roughly 6000 people to thrive. "That's the smell of money," some locals used to say.

In 2009, however, shifts in the shoe trade prompted the tannery's owner, Wolverine Worldwide, which is based here, to close the facility. In a 2010 request for state funds to help redevelop the 6-hectare site, which sits astride a picturesque business district, lawyers representing the company stated: "There is no known contamination on the property."

Lynn McIntosh, a piano teacher and writer who has lived just a block from the tannery for more than 25 years, was skeptical. The statement was "legalese laced with hogwash," she recalls thinking when she read it.


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