2012/01/09 - Dispute Resolution Court Hearing January 11, 2012

The twice postponed court hearing to address Pall Life Sciences' dispute resolution regarding the Western Area Monitoring Plan is now scheduled for 1:30pm, Wednesday, January 11, 2012, in the Honorable Donald E. Shelton's courtroom, Washtenaw District Court, second floor, 101 E. Huron Street, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

To deal with the mass of 1,4-dioxane left in the "Western Area" (formally the Core, Southwest, Marshy, Western, and other areas west of Wagner Road), the DEQ approved a monitoring area around the current plumes at which any dioxane levels above 85 ppb would trigger more compliance actions.

Pall Life Sciences (PLS) wants a more expansive area and invoked the Dispute Resolution clause in the Consent Judgment to let Judge Shelton decide the matter.

As has been the case since 1999, the judge will likely see the two maps above in paper format (without their representation on Google Earth). He will not see these 3D depictions of the dioxane plumes superimposed on the monitoring area maps, thus showing the magnitude of the contamination.

The DEQ has not seen fit to give the judge the benefit of visualizing the site in 3D using Google Earth images such as these above.

Too bad.

More information about the Western Monitoring Plan is available at http://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/deq-rrd-GS-DAGDEQNovember-201... and http://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/deq-rrd-GS-DEQMay2011WesternA...