2200 TURNER AVENUE NORTHWEST
The H. Brown site is located in Walker, Kent County, Michigan. The 3.5 acre H. Brown Co., Inc. site is an inactive automobile and forklift battery recycling facility with approximately 200,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated by lead and other battery related metals. The site and surrounding area may have been used as a municipal waste disposal landfill before the H. Brown Company began operations on the property in 1961. The site is primarily defined by the soils, contaminated with lead (one soil sample was found to have contained approximately 47 percent lead). Initially, the company's operations involved buying, dismantling, processing, and selling scrap metal and junk. Later, the company focused on reclaiming lead from used batteries. Until 1978, the lead reclamation process involved dismantling batteries and draining battery acid onto an area of the site. Responding to a request by the state, the company installed liquid collection pans and stainless steel storage tanks on the site in 1978 to collect and contain drummed battery acids instead of draining them on the ground. Acid that was stored in the tanks later was taken to an offsite facility for disposal. The company discontinued its lead reclamation activities in 1982. Surface water from the site drains through a ditch to a wetland which then empties into the Grand River one quarter mile east of the site. Approximately 3,000 people live within a three mile radius of the site. The source of municipal water is Lake Michigan with supplementary water drawn from the Grand River each summer. The site and surrounding properties are in the flood plain of the Grand River.
7,128 |
People living within a 1 mile radius |
$51,932 |
Average Income |
2,750 |
Occupied homes |
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