The Non-Financial Ledger: What Numbers Cannot Count

There is a street in Rose Township, Oakland County, Michigan. It is called Demode Road. At some point in the early 1970s, someone started using land there as a dump. Industrial waste. Chemical waste. The kind of waste corporations pay to make disappear. And disappear it did, into the soil and the groundwater under the homes and properties of the people who lived nearby. The local courts caught it early. The property owner was fined. The fine was, in the words of U.S. Congressman George Crockett Jr., “nominal.”

By the time the EPA formally intervened, nearly a decade had already passed. The people of Rose Township had spent years living adjacent to a confirmed Superfund site, knowing the ground beneath them held PCBs, lead, arsenic, and a cocktail of volatile chemicals capable of causing cancer. They attended hearings. They asked questions. They listened to EPA engineers explain, with charts and chemical data and even a live test burn, exactly how the contamination would be eliminated. They were told the plan: dig it up, burn it, extract the groundwater, make it clean. Two to three years. A firm commitment.

Then they were called back to another public hearing a year later and told the plan had changed. No warning. No consultation. The EPA had spent the intervening months negotiating secretly with the companies that had poisoned the land, and had reached a deal. The community learned of it the same way you learn about most things that affect your life but were decided without you: after the fact, in a public meeting, from a podium.

One resident, Gisela King, put it plainly in her written comments to the EPA: you show no evidence of how this process will work. You just want us to take your word for it. That sentence deserves to sit with you for a moment. A woman whose property and health and community were at stake was being asked to trust the judgment of the same agency that had just admitted it signed a settlement agreement it could not fully defend with science. The EPA’s formal response to her concerns was, in essence: we believe the cleanup is sound.

Dr. and Mrs. Egbert Henry, property owners in the affected area, wrote to say they were “vehemently opposed.” Their word. Vehemently. That is the word people use when they are not simply inconvenienced but when something fundamental to their safety and dignity has been violated. The EPA’s response noted the groundwater purge system was still included in the plan and moved on.

For nearly a decade, these families carried the weight of contamination. They monitored their water. They watched trucks and equipment come and go. They attended every public meeting, wrote every letter, filed every comment. They did everything a citizen is supposed to do in a democracy when the government promises to fix a dangerous problem. And after all of that, they were told: we changed the plan, the companies will try something experimental for up to fifteen years, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll figure it out then. A Congressman representing them calculated they might be waiting more than thirty years for a clean resolution. He called it “too much to ask.”

He was right. It was too much to ask. And they were asked anyway.

Legal Receipts: Their Own Words

Every quote below is verbatim from the EPA’s Responsiveness Summary and the written comments filed by community members, legislators, state agencies, and environmental groups. These are not characterizations. These are the actual words on record.

Societal Impact Mapping

Environmental Degradation

The Demode Road site concentrated multiple categories of hazardous contamination in soil and groundwater, with documented pathways into surrounding ecosystems. The amended cleanup plan introduced additional vectors for environmental harm.

• PCBs were confirmed in surface soils at concentrations requiring excavation to a cleanup level of 10 parts per million. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formally recommended the cleanup threshold be set at 0.05 ppm to protect migratory wildlife, a standard the EPA did not adopt either in the original ROD or the amendment.
• Lead and arsenic contaminated surface soils required treatment to 70 ppm and 14 ppm respectively. Because this remedy would result in heavy metals remaining on-site above health-based levels, the EPA’s own declaration acknowledged a mandatory five-year review would be required to verify continued protection.
• VOCs and SVOCs contaminated subsurface soils down to a health-based cleanup level of 80 parts per billion. The soil flushing amendment would push these contaminants into groundwater as part of the treatment process, deliberately mobilizing toxics through the subsurface toward extraction wells, with acknowledged uncertainty about whether all contaminated zones would be reached.
• Treated effluent was permitted to discharge into nearby wetlands under both the original ROD and the amended plan. Environmental groups flagged this as additional harm to an already-damaged natural resource. The EPA’s response was that “no evidence exists as yet” of wetland harm, without conducting the investigation that would produce such evidence.
• The site contained a complex geology described in the RI/FS as a “stratified sequence of sand layers, interbedded with lenses of silt clay” with deposits that “appear to lack stratigraphic continuity even on a very local scale.” The MDNR warned this complexity would cause flush water to bypass contaminated zones, leaving toxics trapped in clay pockets to leach into groundwater for years after the operation was deemed complete.
• A northern contaminant plume containing vinyl chloride had not been fully delineated at the time of the amendment. The source of vinyl chloride was unidentified. The amended plan did not specifically address delineating or remediating it as a distinct contamination source.

Public Health

The EPA’s own remedial investigation identified multiple confirmed and potential exposure pathways presenting “unacceptable carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic risks” to human health. The amended plan extended the timeline during which those pathways remained active.

• Groundwater ingestion was identified as both a present and future exposure pathway on-site and potentially off-site, with contamination including VOCs, SVOCs, and heavy metals confirmed in site groundwater.
• Dermal contact and ingestion of contaminated soils were confirmed as present and future exposure pathways on-site, relevant to any person accessing the property before full remediation.
• The cleanup standard applied to the aquifer used Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) as Phase I targets, but the MDNR and environmental groups noted these thresholds did not account for additive or synergistic effects from the site’s mixture of chemicals, meaning the actual health risk at permitted Phase I levels was higher than any single-chemical standard would indicate.
• The original incineration remedy was projected to take 2 to 3 years to complete soil treatment, after which groundwater extraction would run an additional 6 to 10 years. The amended flushing plan allowed up to 10 years of flushing, with a provision for an additional 5 years, before the Settling Defendants were required to switch to an alternative, meaning residents faced a potential 15-year exposure window under the experimental approach before any guaranteed fallback.
• The cancer risk benchmark applied across the site was a 10 to the negative sixth (10&sup6;) excess lifetime cancer risk standard. This is the probability threshold regulators use to define “acceptable” risk, but it is a statistical average across an exposed population, not a guarantee for any individual living adjacent to the site.
• Congress had cut EPA funding, eliminating the agency’s $31 million share of the original remedy. The Congressman’s letter noted this funding gap was a primary driver of the settlement. Budget cuts, not science, shaped the health protection offered to Rose Township.

Economic Inequality

The financial structure of the Rose Township settlement followed a pattern consistent with how environmental enforcement has historically worked: corporations negotiate, and communities absorb residual risk.

• The EPA stated the settlement was necessary to “save the SuperFund $30 million.” That savings came directly at the expense of a more certain and faster cleanup for the people living near the site. The agency made an explicit fiscal trade-off that prioritized the federal budget over community protection speed.
• The Settling Defendants, twelve corporations, were collectively responsible for contaminating the site. Under the Consent Decree they were required to pay approximately $10 million toward cleanup, potentially less than one third of the original $34 million projected cost of a fully protective remedy.
• A $500,000 trust fund was established as a contingency. Congressman Crockett called this “a drop in the bucket.” The EPA argued it would grow to over $1 million with interest. Against tens of millions in potential liability, this represented a minimal corporate backstop for catastrophic failure risk.
• The EPA’s Technical Assistance Grants (TAG) program was offered to community members as a way to hire their own engineer to verify the cleanup. While this program exists, it places the burden on residents without scientific or legal resources to independently audit a process that the state’s own DNR had already declared inadequate.
• Residents who had already spent nearly a decade organizing, attending public meetings, and filing comments received no compensation for time, stress, reduced property values, or ongoing exposure. The settlement exclusively addressed remediation costs, with no acknowledgment of community harm.
• The negotiation between the EPA and the Settling Defendants was conducted under privilege and confidentiality, standard legal procedure for such settlements, but the practical effect was that the community most affected by the outcome had zero input into terms that would govern their health and environment for the next decade or more.

The Numbers in Context

The following chart maps the financial architecture of this case: what the original remedy cost, what the settlement cost, and what the backup funds covered. Every number is sourced directly from the EPA documents.

The “Cost of a Life” Metric

What Now?

The Rose Township case is a blueprint for how Superfund enforcement has historically operated: private negotiations, unproven remedies, risk offloaded to communities, and regulatory retreat driven by budget politics rather than science. Here is who is accountable and what residents and advocates can do.

Who To Hold Accountable

The source document identifies the following parties by role and title:

• Regional Administrator, U.S. EPA Region V: The signatory on the ROD Amendment was Valdas V. Adamkus, who signed off on the amended plan over the objections of the state, elected legislators, and community members.
• The 12 Settling Defendants: The source document refers to them as “Settling Defendants” throughout but does not name individual corporations in the text provided. Full corporate identities would be contained in the Consent Decree appendix referenced but not reproduced here. [REDACTED – Full corporate names not in source]
• U.S. EPA Region V Leadership: Region V, based in Chicago, Illinois, was the decision-making body for the Rose Township site and the entity that negotiated the settlement with the polluting parties.

Watchlist: Regulatory Bodies With Jurisdiction

• U.S. EPA Office of Superfund Remediation and Technology Innovation (OSRTI): The federal body responsible for oversight of all CERCLA Superfund sites, including five-year reviews mandated when hazardous substances remain above health-based levels. The Rose Township ROD Amendment explicitly triggered this requirement.
• U.S. EPA Region V (Chicago): The regional office with direct operational authority over Rose Township. Any updates to the Consent Decree, remedial design approvals, or enforcement actions pass through this office.
• Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE): Successor to the Michigan DNR, which formally rejected the amended plan. EGLE retains state-level authority over groundwater protection and cleanup standards in Michigan.
• U.S. Department of Justice, Environment and Natural Resources Division: The DOJ division that oversees consent decrees and can pursue enforcement actions against Settling Defendants who fail to meet cleanup obligations.
• Michigan Toxic Substances Control Commission: The state body that filed formal objections in 1988, citing the remedy as inconsistent with responsible EPA management. A successor or equivalent body retains standing to re-raise concerns about ongoing site conditions.
• Congressional Oversight: The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing and Critical Materials, and the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee both have direct jurisdiction over EPA Superfund policy and enforcement adequacy.

What You Can Do

• Demand the five-year review records: The ROD Amendment required mandatory five-year reviews because hazardous substances remain on-site above health-based levels. File a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with EPA Region V for all five-year review reports conducted at the Rose Township Demode Road site since 1988. Superfund five-year reviews are public documents.
• Contact Michigan EGLE directly: Request the current site status for the Rose Township Demode Road Superfund site, including any remaining cleanup obligations and current groundwater monitoring data. State agencies are required to provide this information to the public.
• Connect with Oakland County environmental justice organizations: Local environmental groups in Oakland County and the broader Michigan environmental advocacy network can provide current on-the-ground information about the site status and connect you with affected residents or descendants of the original community.
• Apply for EPA Technical Assistance Grants (TAG): The TAG program, which the EPA itself mentioned in the Responsiveness Summary, provides funds to community groups to hire independent technical experts to review cleanup plans and monitoring data. Groups in Rose Township or advocates on their behalf are eligible to apply.
• Engage mutual aid and community science networks: Organizations like the Environmental Justice Health Alliance and university-based community environmental monitoring programs can assist with independent water and soil testing for communities near contaminated sites, providing data that does not depend on the EPA or corporate-hired contractors.
• Support federal Superfund reauthorization advocacy: The budget cuts to EPA that the agency cited as justification for the settlement came from Congressional appropriations decisions. Advocacy for restored and ring-fenced Superfund appropriations directly prevents future communities from being placed in the same position as Rose Township residents.