The Tribar Technologies Plant No. 5 in Wixom, Mich. on Thursday, Aug. 4, 2022. The state of Michigan issued a ‘no contact’ advisory for the Huron River downstream of Wixom after the Tribar plant put a large amount of toxic hexavalent chromium into the city wastewater system, which discharges to the river. (Garret Ellison | MLive)

WIXOM, MI — What exactly happened at Tribar Technologies on the weekend a plating tank operator released a near-environmental calamity?

What was the intent of the now-former Tribar employee who released hexavalent chromium to the sewer? Why did he quit a few days later? Why did he override alarms for hours?

Why were there no safeguards in place to prevent such a thing from happening?

“Why could he be able to turn the key and throw the switch by himself?” asked Daniel Brown, a watershed planner for the Huron River Watershed Council (HRWC) in Ann Arbor.

“Why should one guy be able to make that decision?”

Answers to those questions and more remain outstanding more than a month after the mishap at Tribar, a metro Detroit auto supplier where, on July 29, a plating tank filled with toxicants was dumped into the Wixom sewer system.

The onrush overwhelmed the Wixom wastewater plant, which discharges to the Huron River. Thankfully, filters captured most of the chromium and a ‘no contact’ advisory was lifted after river testing found minimal detections.

But, while uproar over the spill has died down, the state’s protracted investigation goes on.

“Nothing has been ruled out at this point,” said Jill Greenberg, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE).

“The investigation is focusing on all aspects of the Tribar facility,” said Greenberg. “That includes their operations, notification systems and their personnel.”

The state has already said it’s reviewing the Tribar incident for potential criminal charges after taking over an investigation which was initially launched by Wixom Police.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has also sought information about the spill from the state and Tribar, but hasn’t said whether it’s conducting a full investigation.

On Aug. 30, EGLE sent Tribar a letter stating that the company’s Aug. 19 responses to state regulator questions asked in an Aug. 9 legal violation notice were “insufficient,” and after being reviewed by water resources staff, were “not approvable at this time.”

Tribar is facing an “escalated” the environmental enforcement process, which EGLE generally reserves for egregious or long-running pollution violations. The stepped-up crackdown usually results in an administrative order, fines, or, if the matter is contentious, civil litigation through the attorney general.

The state’s investigation is multi-pronged and involves several divisions at EGLE, including a criminal investigative arm called the Environmental Investigative Services (EIS) unit, which is shared with the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

Tribar is also facing violations from EGLE’s Air Quality Division for poor record-keeping and failing to properly control metal treatment tanks for toxic metal emissions.

The primary scrutiny is through the Water Resources Division (WRD), which regulates industrial wastewater by applying pressure on municipal plants like the one in Wixom, which is permitted to accept pre-treated industrial wastewater.

On Aug. 9, EGLE’s water resources division sent Tribar a six-page violation notice following the chromium spill, which Tribar initially reported to the state via a pollution alert hotline on Monday, Aug. 1.

According to the state’s notice, Tribar got off on the wrong foot with WRD regulators almost immediately by waiting until 3:51 p.m. to notify EGLE about the release after having reported it to the city of Wixom seven hours earlier, around 8:30 a.m. that morning. Notifications of a “slug discharge” are supposed to be made immediately by phone, EGLE said.

Tribar was already under a separate violation notice from WRD at the time of the chromium spill for failing to keep its required pollution incident prevention plan up to date.

EGLE demanded a detailed chronology of events at Tribar’s Plant No. 5 on Alpha Drive prior to the discharge from Tank A on Friday, July 29. The letter included 18 specific requests, some with multiple sub-items, about tank operator actions, tank chemical contents, decision-making and notification protocols, safeguards, and plans to prevent a future spill.

In the letter, the state asked why the waste treatment alarms were overridden 460 times between over a span of nearly three hours that night.

EGLE asked for “information collected” from an “exit interview” with Anthony Johnston, whom documents indicate is the name of the tank operator who released the chemicals.

In Tribar’s Aug. 19 response, the company says “Mr. Johnson” “decided on his own to push the contents of Tank A through the WT plant; he did not reach anyone higher up for authorization.”

The response says a discussion took place with Johnson at 5 p.m. on Aug. 1, in which he said the tank was treated several times with sodium hydrosulfite, a chemical used to convert hexavalent chromium into a less toxic version called trivalent chromium. The Tank A contents were considered waste after being moved from an etch tank seven days earlier.

Johnston “heard and saw alarms going off for high concentrations, so he shut the system on and off to bypass and skip the alarms,” Tribar wrote.

After the discussion, “Mr. Johnson resigned, walked out, and no “exit interview” was performed.”

According to Tribar, Johnston “was not authorized to be in the plant” that weekend. However, Tribar did not specifically answer EGLE questions seeking more details about that, including “why was a wastewater operator in the facility, unsupervised, during the weekend,” and “to whom did the operator who overrode the alarms report to during this time?”

The company also did not answer EGLE questions about the chain of command for alarm overrides, the specific name of the alarm, whether it was “reset, bypassed or overridden” and who was in charge of the waste treatment system.

Tribar replied that it would “consider” adding that information to a corporate software system it uses to manage day-to-day business activities.

According to Tribar “less than three pounds” of hexavalent chromium was estimated to be in the 10,000 gallons of discharge that reached Wixom sewers, which is much lower than initial estimates reported to the state and city in the immediate wake of the spill.

Granular activated carbon (GAC) filters installed on Plant 5′s effluent line to capture PFAS chemicals also captured most of the chromium, about 1,500 pounds, according to EGLE. Remnants settled out in Wixom wastewater biosolids.

“The conservative determination is that less than 20 pounds of total chromium was discharged to the receiving waters, compared to the original reported release of 8,000 pounds of hexavalent chromium,” according to an Aug. 10 EGLE presentation on the ultimate fate of the contaminants. “The level of less than 20 pounds total chromium is based on analytical data at the WWTP. EGLE has high confidence in this discharge amount.”

In that respect, the river dodged a bullet.

On Sept. 1, the city of Wixom announced that it was allowing Tribar’s Plant No. 5 to resume its wastewater discharge after it installed new safeguards.

In its news release, the city said Tribar’s new safeguards included increased staffing requirements during wastewater processing, increased staff training, additional effluent monitoring, new automated controls to keep wastewater from leaving the plant, new security on those controls and restrictions on who can override them.

Conversations among environmental groups about strengthening state environmental laws to put a greater burden of cleanup on polluters continues. Democratic lawmakers began trumpeting “polluter pay” bills in late August while Legislature took off for a long break.

At the Huron River Watershed Council, Brown says the Tribar incident underscores structural weakness in the state’s industrial wastewater regulatory program.

He thinks Tribar has been getting away with small releases that are escaping notice due to the way the state’s Industrial Pretreatment Program (IPP) allows companies to self-report.

“I’m not convinced at all they haven’t been doing low-level spills to the river undetected,” Brown said. “Any number of things could be going through the wastewater treatment plant. If it’s just above criteria, it’s very possible it might not get caught.”

Tribar did not answer MLive questions about how its employee was able to be in the plant unsupervised, what kind of security was in place, why there wasn’t a management nonfiction system before the spill and the extent of discussion with Johnston after the incident.

“We do not comment on personnel matters,” Tribar stated. “Any question related to the investigation should be addressed to law enforcement.”

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EGLE finds low hexchrome in river testing

Tests encouraging, but worry and anger remain

Ann Arbor council OK’s legal action toward Tribar

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