Huron River activist press conference

Update, 8/12: Spill much smaller than feared, state says

Update, 8/12: Protestors visit Tribar CEO’s home

LANSING, MI — An employee at Tribar Technologies in Wixom overrode the company’s waste treatment alarms 460 times in the span of nearly three hours on the night which state regulators believe a toxic chemical release to the Huron River initially began last weekend.

That extraordinary detail is among new information about the circumstances surrounding a hexavalent chromium release to the Wixom wastewater system contained in violation notices issued by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE).

In an Aug. 9 “egregious” violation letter sent to Tribar, an auto supplier which manufacturers chrome-finished parts using toxic chemicals, state regulators demanded more information about what transpired at the company’s Wixom Plant No. 5 on Alpha Drive on Friday, July 29.

According to the EGLE notice, that’s when a 14,923-gallon rinse waste tank holding about 10,000 gallons of “acid etch material” with about five percent total chromium was emptied into the Wixom wastewater system as a contamination slug, which overwhelmed the sewage plant.

Wixon’s plant discharges to the Huron River via the Norton Creek drain upstream of Milford.

Between 4:59 and 7:46 p.m. on July 29, the tank operator overrode the waste treatment alarms 460 times, or about once every 20 seconds, according to the notice. Another “high level” alarm was recorded at 11 p.m.

How and why that occurred is unclear. EGLE says the company has not been fully forthcoming with its investigation, which involves the state’s criminal environmental investigative arm.

Tribar did not report the release until Monday, Aug. 1, when employee Ryan O’Keefe made an 8 a.m. state Pollution Emergency Alert System (PEAS) report attributing the release to “operator error.”

“Why was a wastewater operator in the facility, unsupervised, during the weekend?” asked Teresa Seidel, director of EGLE’s water resources division, in the letter. “To whom did the operator who overrode the alarms report to during this time?”

At the moment, the answers are yet to come.

“We have asked them repeatedly for critical information about their systems and the timeline for what happened. They have provided some information but have not provided the level of information we need for the investigation,” said EGLE spokesperson Hugh McDiarmid.

“That whole weekend timeline is not clear to us and they have not been helpful in putting it together,” McDiarmid said.

Last week, Tribar said it “took immediate action, including making certain the release was stopped and contacting the wastewater treatment plant” last Monday.

In a statement to MLive on Wednesday, Tribar said it was reviewing the violation notices with environmental consultants at Barr and August Mack and would share internal investigation findings this week.

The tank operator is no longer employed by Tribar, the company said.

“Tribar has invested millions of dollars in sophisticated environmental controls to prevent an accidental release of wastewater prior to treatment at our facility. Based on an initial investigation, those automated controls were all functioning properly at the time the plating solution was released to the wastewater treatment plant,” the company stated. “However, the controls were repeatedly overridden by the operator on duty while the facility was shut down for the weekend. That individual is no longer employed by our company, and we are in the process of further improving our internal controls to prevent a future occurrence.”

Tribar released additional information Wednesday evening, saying the employee who overrode the alarms “resigned before his shift started on Monday.”

The company said it did not know why he was there after hours. “At the time of the event, his manager was not aware that he was onsite after hours and did not authorize him to be onsite after hours,” Tribar said.

The company said there was no way for off-site management to know the alarms were being over-ridden. “However, Tribar is in the process of updating its controls to notify management quickly and to put in place other controls to prevent any attempt to override an alarm that could lead to an event like this reoccurring.”

The company declined to address the employee’s intent, saying that “we have cooperated fully with inquiries from both Wixom Police and the FBI.” Last week, EGLE confirmed that it had given a briefing on the matter to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The city of Wixom also said it turned over its criminal investigation to the state.

EGLE announced the violation notices on Wednesday, Aug. 10, more than a week after the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) issued an Aug. 2 ‘no contact’ advisory for the Huron River downstream of Wixom.

The violations are part of an “accelerated enforcement” process against Tribar which EGLE says will involve administrative consent negotiations and attempts at recovering costs incurred by the state in response to the spill, which has sparked a week of widespread testing on the river.

The company failed to immediately notify EGLE about the discharge, interfered with a city’s wastewater treatment and failed to maintain a pollution prevention plan, EGLE says.

The citations follow unrelated violation notices from the agency’s air quality division following a July inspection, which found the company was not keeping adequate records and was not properly operating equipment which controls nickel and chromium emissions.

Tribar has until Aug. 20 to respond to the water violations and Aug. 30 to respond to the air quality violations, EGLE said.

Tribar operates four plants in Wixom and two in Howell. The company was previously named Adept Plastic Finishing before it was acquired by HCI Equity Partners in 2016.

Tribar’s Plant No. 5 is operating but not discharging wastewater to the city, which issued a cease-and-desist order last week.

The state has maintained the contact advisory so far this week although river testing has turned up minimal detections of the contaminants, leading state and local officials to expression optimism that the contaminants were largely bound up in filters at Tribar and the Wixom plant.

There has been widespread concern over the potential for contaminants to reach the city of Ann Arbor’s water intake downstream at Barton Pond, although computer modeling has shown that the slow-flowing river wouldn’t likely bring any chromium to the city for several weeks.

Hexavalent chromium, or hexchrome, is a carcinogenic chemical used in plastic finishing. It can cause a number of health problems through ingestion, skin contact or inhalation.

EGLE says its testing data has been turned over to DHHS, which is expected to make a determination on the continuance of the contact advisory in the coming days.

On Wednesday, activists outraged at the spill rallied at Heavner Canoe Rental in Milford to call for stronger polluter accountability laws and punitive action against Tribar.

The company has polluted the river before. Tribar is chiefly responsible for the existing “Do Not Eat” fish advisory in the river due to PFAS chemicals, which also were discharged to the river through the Wixom wastewater plant.

State Rep. Yousef Rabhi, D-Ann Arbor, led the crowd in chants of “shut them down!” and urged people to call lawmakers in Lansing to support “polluter pay” legislation.

“They need to be shut down. They need to be held accountable — GM, Ford, every single manufacturer needs to stop doing business with them,” said Rabhi.

“I want them sued into oblivion.”

Dingell seeks greater EPA hand in Huron River spill

EGLE finds low hexchrome in river testing

Tests encouraging, but worry and anger remain

Hexchrome could take weeks to reach Ann Arbor

Ann Arbor council OK’s legal action toward Tribar

Wixom police investigate Tribar hexchrome spill

Non-contact with Huron River urged after spill

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