GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Two West Michigan landfills are suing Wolverine Worldwide and 3M Corp., alleging the companies are responsible for years of PFAS contamination tied to the disposal of contaminated tannery sludge from former shoemaking in Rockford.
Central Sanitary Landfill in Pierson Township and Ottawa County Farms Landfill in Coopersville filed the complaint Dec. 4 in U.S. District Court, seeking reimbursement for investigation, monitoring and leachate-management costs they allege stem directly from Wolverine’s long-running use of PFAS-laden Scotchgard chemicals.
The landfills claim they’ve spent years installing monitoring wells, providing temporary water supplies to nearby homes and developing new leachate disposal systems because of PFAS traced to Wolverine’s waste stream. The Ottawa landfill built an injection well to put treated leachate more than 5,400 feet underground “because of the disposal of tannery waste,” the filing claims…