Kingsford, Michigan
In October 2004, Ford Motor Company and the Kingsford Products Company reached a judicial settlement with the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality and the Michigan Attorney General to resolve historic environmental contamination in the Kingsford-Breitung Township area in Dickinson County, Michigan. The settlement builds on the work the companies have already undertaken and calls for them to provide methane monitoring, vapor control systems and annual inspections for structures within the area. The companies will also cap former waste disposal areas, extract and treat contaminated groundwater, develop and implement a comprehensive remedial action plan and reimburse the state for any future response activity costs. To date, Ford and Kingsford Products have reimbursed the state $1.4 million in past response activity costs incurred at this facility.
Ford opened a car and glider parts manufacturing facility in Kingsford in the 1920s, and subsequently operated a wood chemical distillation plant to make use of wood scraps from the manufacturing facility. The Kingsford Products Company's predecessor, Kingsford Chemical Company, subsequently purchased the Ford chemical plant and operated it from 1951 to 1961. From the 1920s until 1961, both companies disposed of wood chemical distillation waste into pits in this area. Methane from the decomposing waste and other industrial chemicals in the pits have entered the soils, groundwater and the Menominee River.
Ringwood Mines Landfill Site
Ford Motor Company has stepped up and agreed to address concerns that have been raised related to Ford's prior disposal activities at the Ringwood Mines landfill site, including the adequacy of the prior investigation and cleanup of waste disposed by Ford. In September 2004, Ford Motor Company entered into an Administrative Order on Consent and Settlement Agreement (AOC) with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regarding additional environmental activities at the Ringwood site. The EPA also requested the Borough of Ringwood's assistance in completing work at the site, and the EPA issued a Unilateral Administrative Order against the Borough regarding the Ringwood site. Ford is conducting work at the site pursuant to the AOC, all under the direction of the EPA and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
Although the Ringwood site has been used for decades for the legal and illegal disposal of wastes of all types by the Borough of Ringwood and other parties, Ford only used the site to dispose of waste materials (primarily cardboard and wood wastes and paint sludge from the former Mahwah Assembly Plant) from 1967 to the middle of 1971. Ford previously participated in investigative activities at the site. Ford is committed to addressing issues related to its prior waste disposal activities at the site.
