Wasted efforts

Somewhere between one and half and three pounds of the mercury — a toxic heavy metal — spilled onto the facility floors.

A maintenance supervisor used shop vacuums to clean up the spilled liquid metal. According to documents released by the city of East Lansing, he poured the collected mercury down a drain located in a sink in the facility’s shop. He didn’t report the spill to supervisors.

According to records released by the city, the toxic spill was handled in an unsafe manner and possibly resulted in contamination outside the plant. Failing to report a toxic release is a violation of state and federal law, as well.

The city was ultimately fined thousands of dollars by state safety regulators and cited for over 15 violations of state environmental laws and regulations. And last month, eight current and one former employee of the facility filed a state lawsuit against the city of East Lansing alleging the municipality put their health in jeopardy by their failure to address the mercury spill and ongoing issues with asbestos.

One activist says the city needs to be transparent about the spill and the cleanup.

“It’s very troubling the allegations were not disclosed fully,” said Walt Sorg, president of the board of directors of the Mid-Michigan Environmental Action Council.

All the internal communications, government reports, citations and bills were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by citizen journalists at EastLansingInfo. org. They were also first to report on the lawsuit. City Pulse obtained the documents from the city of East Lansing as well as from the Ingham County Health Department last week.

Documents show facility staff attempted to clean up the remaining mercury. During that time, the contamination was spread to other parts of the facility, as well as to the Hannah Community Center — although the public would not be told of the Hannah exposure for nearly seven months.

Finally, on March 20, 2014 — nearly four months after the incident — facility staff and union officials brought the spill to the attention of city of East Lansing administrators. State and local government mobilized staff to investigate and respond.

According to the documents, the maintenance supervisor used two shop vacuums available in the shop of the Waste Water Treatment Plant to vacuum up the mercury.

He then dumped the mercury down a sink in the facility. While other employees were aware of the incident and the cleanup, they didn’t report anything until March.

When the Ingham County Health Department was called in, officials arrived with a specially designed mercury cleanup vacuum and they tested the air. They determined there was contamination, but not enough to pose a health threat to employees. Nonetheless, employees were encouraged to get tested for mercury — blood tests which showed there were no toxic levels of mercury in any of the tested employees.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says the health effects of exposure the type of mercury spilled at the facility include: “tremors; emotional changes (e.g., mood swings, irritability, nervousness, excessive shyness); insomnia; neuromuscular changes (such as weakness, muscle atrophy, twitching); headaches; disturbances in sensations; changes in nerve responses; performance deficits on tests of cognitive function. At higher exposures there may be kidney effects, respiratory failure and death.”

Health department officials also packaged the contaminated vacuums.

The city had wanted to keep the sink where the mercury had been disposed. But outside contractor testing found it was heavily contaminated. As a result, the 200-pound sink and drain were removed and replaced.

Health officials worked with city employees to properly contain the contamination. They placed the exposed items — two vacuums and the manometer — in trash cans sealed with plastic. A dumpster, where one of the vacuums had been stored was checked and found to contain no contamination. Based on the records released from the city, the contaminated material was stored in an unlocked room at the facility.

The incident in 2013 stands in stark contrast to an incident in March 2005 at the facility. At that time, less than a pound of mercury was spilled. Within 24 hours, employees contacted the Ingham County Health Department Bureau of Environmental Health. County officials responded, identified mercury beads in a storage room, and took mercury vapor readings. They cleared the building for occupancy and left the vacuum for continued cleanup needs at the facility. Employees of the Waste Water Treatment Plant were trained on how to use the mercury vacuum, as well as using personal protection equipment so they could conduct the cleanup over the course of a “couple of days.”

The event did not require reporting to the state, and no state or federal agencies inspected. That 2005 response was well within cleanup recommendations provided by county health officials in March 2014.

And that difference is shown in the costs that added up for this spill. As a result of the 2013 spill, and the delay in reporting, the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited the facility for five serious violations of workplace safety rules. The city was cited for failing to have hazard communications and emergency response plans, failure to inform employees of asbestos, to provide required asbestos awareness trainings, and to keep asbestos from surfaces in the facility.

MIOSHA levied an original fine of $11,000 for the violations, but reduced that to $4,400 in a settlement agreement signed in August.

Beyond the fines, the city also racked up significant bills cleaning up asbestos and mercury. The documents show the city paid contractor HBC $7,570 to remove asbestos from the tunnels in the facility, something MIOSHA cited the city for.

The city paid contractor Environmental Quality $3,943.76 for mercury abatement — by removing and properly disposing of the vacuums and the sink. The city paid another contractor, FiberTec, $725 for mercury testing; and $900 to ASHA for providing two three-hour asbestos trainings.

The Lansing State Journal reported the former maintenance supervisor, Wayne Beede, 48, was given a $26,450 separation agreement on Nov. 4. Under the agreement, he would not seek legal action against the city, and was barred to discuss any details of the separation.

The total cost to the city — not including medical testing of employees for mercury exposure and staff time developing new policies — was $44,038.76.

The city had paid its fines to MIOSHA. The cleanup was complete. Contaminated items from the facility had been disposed of and citations from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality were all abated.

Then on Oct. 9 Paul Stokes, the recently appointed plant superintendent, notified East Lansing administrators that he had been informed by two employees that a vacuum hose attachment used during the improper mercury cleanup had been detached from the contaminated vacuum and taken to the Hannah Community Center for use.

“I bring this to your attention since there seems to be continuing employee contact with MiOSHA regarding asbestos issues,” Stokes wrote in an email to Lahanas and others. “Would not be surprised the next visit from MiOSHA involves mercury too.”

There, four heater units were “blown out,” a term of art to reference removal of dust and debris. This happened on March 18, 2014, two days before the November incident was reported to authorities.

Hannah is owned and operated by the city of East Lansing. According to the city website, the facility plays hosts to a variety of activities including meetings, classes, physical fitness programming, and is home to the All-Of-Us-Express Children´s Theatre.

The following day, the Ingham County Health Department was contacted about the potential mercury exposure. Inspectors conducted tests for mercury Oct. 13.

Three days later, the city posted a letter from Lahanas to city residents and employees at Hannah Community Center.

“Last week it was brought to our attention that a hose from a shop vacuum that may have contained a small amount of mercury was used to clean four (4) fan coil units at the Hannah Community Center in March,” the letter read.

“The results of the tests indicate that mercury vapor levels are well below the standards allowed in a commercial building,” the letter noted.

What the letter didn’t say, however, was that Stokes didn’t think testing was necessary or that it would reveal anything.

In his Oct. 9 e-mail, Stokes wrote, “At this point in time it would be fruitless [to con duct testing] as any mercury vapors would be gone. Even if small droplets were actually discharged, they would probably be evaporated by now.”

Where the vacuum and its attachments were used between the Nov. 22 incident and its removal by county officials on March 20, 2014, is unknown.

Shelli Neumann, director of human resources for East Lansing, indicates in an email that the employee who used the contaminated vacuum says he informed leadership of the situation on March 20, while the health department was investigating. But Todd Sneathen, then the director of public works, told officials he did not recall being notified, and contemporary documents do not show such a report was made.

City Councilwoman Ruth Beier received an email from Lahanas and city officials Oct. 16 answering questions she had posed.

“The heating coils are located next to exits to the building and are used as ‘space heaters’ to very specific small areas,” a memo attached to the email reads. “The air does not travel through the heating/cooling system that runs through the entire Hannah building. If there were at any times higher mercury levels between March and October, they would have been isolated to the smaller, limited areas directly by the four heating coils.”

And following the inspection and testing of Hannah Community Center by the health department, Neumann emailed Lahanas, who forwarded that email to City Council.

“It should be noted that there is no way of predicting or calculating what the mercury vapor levels were at the time of the event in March 2014,” Neumann wrote.

Public safety is a concern, according to Sorg.

“There’s a reason for all these rules,” Sorg said. “It needs to be dealt with firmly. I’m not ready to hang anybody, yet.”

The mercury spill and subsequent investigations by various government agencies unfolded in the midst of a controversy between Waste Water Treatment Plant employees and the city over asbestos, according to a lawsuit filed in district court last month on behalf of current and former employees.

According to the lawsuit, the city “intentionally and with malice” exposed workers to asbestos and mercury.

Lahanas responded with this statement: "I have assigned staff and our attorney to review all of the information provided in the recent lawsuit filed regarding the mercury and asbestos at the Waste Water Treatment Plant. That review has just begun and it will be several weeks until we have a more complete picture of all of the issues raised. In terms of complaints and violations from MIOSHA, we see these as an opportunity to find out where we can improve in terms of safety and to then take the steps to correct any areas indicated by regulatory agencies. Our goal is to provide the safest workplace possible, and we continually strive to improve the safety of the work environment for our employees."

City Councilwoman Kathleen Boyle was the only Council member to respond to questions submitted over the weekend.

“I will not respond to your inquiries because of pending litigation,” she wrote.