Company Releases Hexavalent Chromium into Michigan's Wixom Sewer Treatment System

Michigan officials are asking the public to avoid all contact with Huron River water in a stretch of the river in Oakland and Livingston counties.

This comes after a company's release of potentially harmful hexavalent chromium into the Wixom sewer treatment system, which outflows into the river.

The warning includes Norton Creek downstream of the Wixom Wastewater Treatment Plant (Oakland County), Hubbell Pond (also known as Mill Pond in Oakland County) and Kent Lake (Oakland and Livingston counties). According to officials, sampling efforts are currently underway and the results are expected in the next few days.

Once results come in, the recommendation will be updated, reported officials.

“This recommendation is being made to help protect the health and safety of families who live, work and play in the Huron River in the affected area,” said Elizabeth Hertel, MDHHS director in the news release from the city. “As we gather additional information through sampling, this recommendation may change or be expanded.”

“This is a significant release into a large, much-loved waterway,” said Liesl Clark, EGLE director in the news release. “Our teams are in the field now assessing the situation. We will stay on the job as long as it takes to ensure residents are safe and impacts to the ecosystem are minimized.”

According to Michigan officials, EGLE was notified at 3:21 p.m. Monday by Tribar that it had released several thousand gallons of a liquid containing 5% hexavalent chromium into the sewer system. The company may have started as early as Saturday morning according to Wixom city officials, and much may have already made its way through the treatment plant by the time the release was discovered.

For now, EGLE is taking river water samples from multiple areas downstream from the treatment plant. Testing is taking place within the Tribar facility and the Wixom wastewater treatment plant.

Officials add that there is no immediate threat to drinking water, and time-of-travel modeling shows it would take the contaminant at least several weeks to make its way to the city’s water intakes, so the city will continue monitoring incoming water.

According to Michigan officials, Tribar Manufacturing was identified as the source of PFAS contamination to the river system in recent years, installing additional filtration to help address that problem.