Chelsea resident Chris DeWitt addressed the Chelsea City Council on Jan. 26 about additional environmental contamination issues he discovered after reading three different environmental assessments that he received from the Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA) pertaining to the proposed Old Manchester Road housing project location.
The most recent of which was dated Sept. 30, 2025 (and is included at the end of this story). He said he found over 50 harmful contaminates were mentioned in the three assessments, many of them duplicated.
“They are all issues that need to be addressed,” he said.
He said after speaking at a previous city council meeting that he thought his credibility was called into question when he stated that this property was not publicly disclosed as a former city dump.
He said the city planner said that this information had been discussed at “many, many public meetings” and was included in the Request for Proposals (RFP) for the project.
DeWitt said he went through city council and planning commission meeting minutes and reread the RFP for the project and unless he missed something, he stood by his original statement.
But to be sure, he filed a FOIA with the city.
Also during his citizen’s agenda item, he brought up the Love Canal (link https://www.epa.gov/archive/epa/aboutepa/love-canal-tragedy.html) housing project that was built on an unregulated dumpsite and while acknowledging he wasn’t an engineer and that there were many differences between the two, but, he said there are also parallels.
He also asked the city council if they would personally live on an unregulated city dump that has known contamination issues or would they raise their children on such a property?
He asked council members to comment and Mayor Kate Henson offered to go first. She said in part, “Love Canal happened in the 1970s and that part of the process for Spire (the developer) is to come in and test that soil so if they need to mitigate in order to build a home that’s in a safe place that they will do that.”
She continued, “I love this city. I love the children in this town. I love my own children so if the contamination there is not something that can be mitigated, we will not build there. We are not in a position where we’re shovel ready yet there is a lot of research to be done, so since 1970 in New York I’m sure a lot has been done and we can look to EGLE and to the Brownfield Redevelopment Department that we have here in Washtenaw County.”
She said the City Council would not allow a project that would harm people who want to live here. … “for you to come here and tell me that you think that I’m doing this on purpose and I’m gonna harm the people of my city makes me very upset, and I can’t believe that you would think that of us. I know we don’t know each other well but that’s hard to stomach.”
Several other council members commented that they are waiting for results of further testing and relying on consultants to guide them in their decision making.
Council Member George Merkel said, “This is a contentious conversation between council and yourself and it takes a lot to get up in front of city council. You put a lot of work into this. I think it’s important for citizens of our city to be able to do this and I think we might not agree on the complete context of this conversation but I do appreciate you putting in the work and making the effort to go through all those packet videos, that’s a lot of work and I appreciate that.”
DeWitt asked the City Council to put all three reports on the city’s website.
