EGLE briefs appropriations subcommittee on contaminated-site backlog, tipping-fee proposal to fund cleanups

At a meeting of the Appropriations Subcommittee for the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, EGLE officials presented an overview of contaminated-site cleanup programs and urged consistent funding to address a multi-decade backlog of petroleum and industrial contamination.

Mike Miller, division director for EGLE’s Remediation and Redevelopment Division, told senators the department currently tracks roughly 27,000 contaminated sites statewide, with about 17,000–18,000 under Part 201 of the Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act and nearly 8,000 under Part 213 (leaking underground storage tanks). Miller said roughly half of known sites are “orphaned” — sites where a liable party no longer exists or cannot pay for cleanup — and that the state has about 1,700 sites actively being remediated at any given time.

Miller described four program tracks EGLE manages: Part 201 (hazardous-substance releases to land), Part 213 (petroleum releases from underground storage tanks), the Brownfield Redevelopment Program (grants, loans and tax-increment financing to support redevelopment and pay for environmental remediation), and Superfund/CERCLA work in partnership with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He said the state must match roughly 10% of EPA-funded Superfund costs and that Michigan currently has 64 sites on the federal National Priorities List.

The division director and Deputy Director Travis Boscull emphasized that many recorded releases are decades old and that updated risk classification and improved data systems have allowed EGLE to re-assess sites and prioritize higher-risk work. Miller said the agency has reduced the number of sites with “unknown” risk categories from about 11,000 to fewer than 1,000 in the past 18–20 months, and identified roughly 1,100 sites in the “risk present and immediate” category that require expedited attention.

On leaking underground storage tank (LUST) work, Miller said Michigan had 8,139 open releases in October 2024 (second-highest among states at that time) but has closed an increasing number of sites after organizational and policy changes. He noted a closure goal of 400 sites per year, reported 428 closures in 2024 and said the program was on track to close nearly 600 sites in the current year.

Miller and staff framed consistent funding as essential. He said EGLE currently has “over $300,000,000” allocated to 787 state-managed sites (an allocation estimate to complete cleanup work on those sites) and described steady annual spending; he also noted that long interruptions in remediation work can cause plumes to spread and earlier data to become outdated, increasing future costs.

Committee members pressed staff on redevelopment and community impacts. Senator Singh asked whether EGLE evaluates orphan sites for proximity to economic-development opportunities such as land banks; Miller and Boscull said EGLE routinely coordinates with local units of government and Brownfield redevelopment coordinators to prioritize projects that align with community redevelopment goals while keeping public-health risk the primary factor.

Senators also asked about trusts that hold blighted industrial properties. Miller said compliance and enforcement staff handle statutory requirements but that if a site is not creating exposures and remains in compliance, the owner may lawfully delay active cleanup; he acknowledged this can leave communities with blighted parcels even when statutory compliance is met.

On the question “how clean is clean,” Miller said Michigan’s statutory clean-up criteria are tied to a cancer-risk threshold in statute of 1-in-100,000. He explained closure decisions follow a risk-based evaluation of exposure pathways (groundwater to drinking wells, vapor intrusion into buildings, surface-water migration, and direct contact) and that sites can be closed with use restrictions (deed covenants) when future uses could create exposure pathways that would require further evaluation.

Miller and staff described a governor’s budget proposal to raise the state solid-waste surcharge (the “tipping fee”) from $0.36 per ton to $5 per ton and to redistribute the increased revenue. Under the proposal as described to the committee, the new revenue would be split roughly 55% for contaminated-site cleanup, 20% for a formula allocation to local communities, 15% for a host-communities fund for landfill host jurisdictions, and 10% for materials-management planning and recycling program support. Boscull and Miller said the department is prepared to move increased funds quickly if the Legislature authorizes them.

EGLE staff also discussed a multi-year effort to digitize and publish remediation files. The department said it has digitized about 1.6 million site documents so far and is expanding the Remediation Information Data Exchange (referred to in the hearing as “Bridal”/“Bridal” in the record) so the public and regulated community can access site investigation files online. Staff said the department receives roughly 20,000 FOIA requests a year, with about three quarters directed to remediation files; digitization has already reduced FOIA volume and delays and is included in the budget proposal as an accelerated five-year effort to finish indexing and posting records.

The subcommittee did not take votes on the budget proposal. The committee approved the minutes of its March 13, 2025 meeting (motion by Senator Singh, supported by Senator Bayer; adopted without objection) and later adjourned by motion of the chair supported by Senator Bayer.

Ending: The presentation served as an overview of program structure, recent changes to risk-classification and closure practice, and how the governor’s budget proposal would fund increased remediation, local recycling and host-community relief. The budget proposal and the department’s digital-file expansion were identified by staff as the next items that will require legislative action for additional funding and statutory implementation.