MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich. — Environmental crews continued cleanup efforts around a suburban Detroit freeway and in a shuttered industrial firm after a chemical seeped onto the roadway.
The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy said Saturday workers finished vacuuming sewers and working inside Madison Heights-based Electro-Plating Services.
The chemical oozed from the building's basement on Friday, entered an Interstate 696 storm sewer and a sewer clean-out between the business and the freeway's service drive.
Officials say the liquid was identified as water contaminated with a chemical used in textile dyes and other products called hexavalent chromium. They add it poses a public danger.
According to WXYZ in Detroit, the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration says the metal is known to cause cancer and targets the respiratory system, liver, kidneys, skin and eyes. It is typically added to steel to increase hardenability and corrosion resistance, the administration says.
WXYZ says workers scooped up the frozen waste in an excavator and placing it in a safe container for disposable. The clean was expected to take all weekend.
Last month, the company was fined $1.5 million and its owner received one year in prison for illegally storing hazardous waste.
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