PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — The Kent County Health Department is launching its most expansive cancer cluster study ever in response to contaminated groundwater next to a former Wolverine Worldwide dump site.
The health department said it expects the study will focus not only homes around the site on House Street NE in Belmont, but also two other sites identified as possible Wolverine dumps.
Those are on 12 Mile Road NE near the White Pine Trail north of Rockford and on the Boulder Creek Golf Club near Cannonsburg Road NE, south of Rockford.
“This is an evolving situation,” Kent County Health Department epidemiologist Brian Hartl said.
Hartl said the study — which is so big that the county has asked the state for help — is meant to determine if contamination in groundwater has led to a spike in cancer.“
As much as we can to support the citizens in this fight for their health, that’s we are here to do,” Hartl said. “That’s what we can contribute to this as epidemiologists, as the health department is to do this survey, to hear their voice and to raise that voice and to make that voice heard.
”So far, the focus has been on the House Street dump, which Wolverine operated legally before it stopped using it in 1970.
Neighbors also led Target 8 to two nearby illegal dumps — ravines on either side of House Street with a total of nearly 40 rusty 55-gallon drums and mounds of partially buried processed animal hides.