KINGSLEY -- A local company wants to convert a brine disposal well in Grand Traverse County to take landfill leachate, a move that would make it Michigan's third commercial disposal well for non-hazardous industrial waste.
Team Completion Services LLC, of Kalkaska, applied to state and federal regulators for a landfill leachate permit for its well near the Miller Road and M-37 intersection in Mayfield Township, about six miles west of Kingsley.
The change would allow the company's well to not only accept brine water from oil and gas operations, but also take on landfill leachate from Glen's Landfill in Leelanau County.
But Glen's officials said they don't immediately intend to use the well because they launched a leachate evaporation system last summer. Landfill leachate is created as rainwater or melted snow runs over rubbish, more than 40,000 gallons of which the Maple City site generates each day.
"They asked us if we were interested and like any company, we want options. We're evaporating our leachate. But I'm sure at some point in time, we'll need additional methods of disposal," said Jim Palmer, Glen's Landfill manager for Waste Management.
The company hasn't trucked leachate off-site since the evaporation system began to operate, Palmer said.
Tim Tinker, Team Completion Services' operations manager, said the requested well reclassification would provide Glen's Landfill a back-up if the evaporation system breaks down or needs maintenance.
"The reclassification of the well will allow us to take water and leachate if they need us to," Tinker said.
His company doesn't intend to accept landfill leachate from another landfill, Tinker said. Legally, it couldn't anyway.
State and federal environmental officials must approve all leachate sources for the well and the company only applied to take leachate from Glen's Landfill. Team Completion Services will continue to accept brine from dozens of oil and gas companies and pump liquid into a well that was permitted and drilled in 1982.
Nearby resident Jeremy Wolf said his home uses well water and the disposal well's proposed new use gives him pause.
"If it's harmful, we don't want it to end up in our well," Wolf said.
Environmental officials said that isn't likely, but citizens can share comments and concerns in writing or at an upcoming public hearing.
"I don't anticipate any major environmental impact from the well. It's quite far below the drinking water table," said Ray Vugrinovich, a geologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
The DNRE has not decided whether to approve the well reclassification. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency intends to do so unless officials receive technical data that suggests their analysis is wrong, said William Bates, EPA permit writer.
"We looked at the construction of the well. We want to make sure the surface casing, the outer most casing, will protect the lowest known underground source of drinking water," he said. "The risk is very small."
If approved, landfill leachate could be injected about 2,000 feet beneath the surface into Traverse limestone for at least 10 years. The geology is adequate to hold the leachate, just as it's done with brine for years, both Vugrinovich and Bates said.
Michigan's two existing commercial disposal wells for non-hazardous industrial waste are in Johannesburg and Pinconning.
