About Christopher Taylor
Mayor Taylor has served as Mayor since November 2014, after serving three terms on Ann Arbor City Council.
Mayor Taylor believes that local government's mission is to improve basic services and enhance quality of life. During his tenure, Ann Arbor has worked to accelerate road maintenance, modernize drinking water infrastructure, expand storm water detention, beautify parks and natural areas, and deploy unrelentingly professional police and fire services. Beyond this focus on the fundamentals, Mayor Taylor has led initiatives to promote non-motorized transportation; develop an unarmed public safety response program, utilize municipal land for 1000+ units of new, permanently affordable housing; and develop the funding, staffing, and political will necessary to establish and achieve a goal of community-wide carbon neutrality by 2030.
Professionally, Mayor Taylor is an attorney. He is a partner at the Ann Arbor law firm of Hooper Hathaway, where his practice focuses on estate planning and small business representation.
Mayor Taylor has earned four degrees from the University of Michigan. During his years at the University of Michigan, Mayor Taylor served as Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Law Review and as president of the Inter-Cooperative Council, a 550-member housing cooperative.
Mayor Taylor has lived in Ann Arbor for over 30 years. He is married to an Ann Arbor native, Eva Rosenwald. They have two college-age children.
Resources
Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor
EPA Adds Gelman Sciences Inc. in Ann Arbor, Michigan, to the Superfund National Priorities List
Transcription
David Fair: This is 89.1 WEMU, and for decades, there has been a spreading plume of a toxic chemical moving ever closer to the Huron River and the City of Ann Arbor's drinking water supply. Federal help is on the way. I'm David Fair, and welcome to Issues of the Environment. On March 12th, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the plume emanating from the old Gelman Sciences facility off Wagner Road in Scio Township had been added to the federal Superfund National Priorities List. That means the EPA can use its statutory authority to hold the current owner of the property responsible for the cost of short and long-term remediation and cleanup and will more quickly address threats to the environment and public health. Joining us to discuss the designation and the process that lay ahead is Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor. And I appreciate you making time for the conversation, Mr. Mayor!
Christopher Taylor: It's my delight to be here! Thanks for having me!
David Fair: Well, like you, I've been following this problem for a very long time. I've been working in the area since the late 80's. Yet, I was caught by surprise by the EPA Superfund announcement. Did you know it was coming?
Christopher Taylor: We knew, of course, that the EPA had been considering Superfund designation over time, but they don't have a lot of transparency about when exactly it's going to come out.
David Fair: So, you were surprised. There have been a lot of people working to get the Superfund designation in place at the city, the county level, citizens' groups and 6th District Congresswoman Debbie Dingell among them. Since the March 12th announcement, have you had occasion to talk with some of these folks?
Christopher Taylor: Yes. I've had conversations with our colleagues at the county and certainly with Mrs. Dingell. And we're grateful that the EPA has followed the law and the science and declared the site as suitable for Superfund remediation and look forward to the accelerated cleanup that that promise brings.
David Fair: Now, most are certainly expressing that they're pleased with the Superfund designation, but over the years, there has been some concern expressed about perhaps a lack of local control over our groundwater aquifer and protecting Barton Pond and the Huron River should the Superfund designation come to be. It does not mean a quick solution as a Superfund site. So, are we losing something in a lack of local control?
Christopher Taylor: You know, certainly, that proved to be part of the conversation over the course of time when we were deciding whether or not to move forward with Superfund or not. This conversation had been percolating for years. The City of Ann Arbor, along with its colleagues' jurisdictions, have gone to court numerous times with the cooperation, of course, of state officials to bring the polluter to account, to require them to clean up as best they could. And we've accomplished a great deal under state law, but we've also accomplished as much as we can. And so, now it's time for the federal government to take over. The federal government's powers and standards are more rigorous and stronger than we have at the state level, but they don't listen to the city anymore than any other party. We are merely one input to them. We do not have agency with respect to cleanup anymore. And that is a trade-off, and it's a trade-off that we've been talking about for years. Back in 2016, 17, 18, 19, 20, with the first Trump administration, that was a daunting element of the calculus. With the Biden administration rolling, I think folks had more confidence in EPA ,and that's when the more formal request for EPA consideration was made. Now, we are back in a different environment, and we just are grateful that the EPA has indeed followed the law and the science and has committed to affecting accelerated cleanup.
David Fair: Well, Superfund cleanups often take decades to complete. So, while that happens, is there a role for the City of Ann Arbor and its partners to ensure the plume does not reach our critical resources?
Christopher Taylor: We will continue to work with the EPA. We'll continue to comment on EPA plans and cleanup proposals, and we'll let them know how what they are doing, what they are requiring of the polluter, how that interfaces with our water treatment and our water treatment system. That's going to be our critical piece of communication. I certainly believe that the EPA is interested in maintaining clean drinking water in Ann Arbor. They understand what our exigencies are, and we're going to communicate those clearly and respectfully to EPA. And I'm grateful for the ongoing dialogue.
David Fair: This is Issues of the Environment on 89.1 WEMU. We're talking with Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor about progress in further addressing the expanding plume of toxic chemicals from the old Gellman Sciences facility. Now, there's been consistent and ongoing legal wrangling and mediation between community government and stakeholders in the Danaher Corporation with the State Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy involved in mediating and negotiating how this goes about. With this designation, does all of that go away?
Christopher Taylor: The focus of all of this now goes to the federal government. They will have, because their powers are greater, their standards are stronger, a more comprehensive cleanup program, and that's going to be the program that's going to put into effect. We are going to continue to make sure that our water treatment is the best that we can accomplish. It is one of our core fundamental baseline responsibilities, obligations, and pleasures to provide clean, safe drinking water to every resident of Ann Arbor and the residents of neighboring townships who take Ann Arbor water. We are successful in that regard, and we are committed to being successful in that regard for decades to come.
David Fair: I'm curious. Is there any legal recourse to get back at least some of the city, township and county taxpayer money that's been invested in trying to prevent the spread of the plume?
Christopher Taylor: At this time, the damage this conversation has done, the federal government is going to look to affect cleanup is my understanding. But as far as us being plaintiffs in seeking to affect damages from the polluter over the course of decades, we've gone as far as we can go.
David Fair: The Danaher Corporation has owned the old Paul Gelman property since 2015. It's been 11 years now, and not much progress on remediation has been made from their part. In all the years you've been dealing with the 1-4 dioxane plume, were you able to have much direct contract at all with corporate officials there?
Christopher Taylor: No. We have been in litigation basically for that entire time. And so, it has been very much attorney-to-attorney communication.
David Fair: Once again, the announcement of superfund designation came on March 12th. Once a site is added to the national priorities list, there's typically a 90-day period for interested parties to file a legal challenge to the listing of the site. I would, but do you expect that Danaher will do just that?
Christopher Taylor: They have certainly proven willing to be obstructionist. They've proven willing to do everything they can to evade responsibility for cleanup of the site. And it wouldn't surprise me if they did object. However, I do not believe that they should. The case for Superfund designation is strong. The need to affect cleanup is great. And I would urge them to forbear and to focus rather on cleaning up than fighting where we are today.
David Fair: Well, and if corporate legal challenge to the designation doesn't work, a company can dispute classification as primary responsible party. And valid or not, Danaher could certainly take that path. My point is, it could be years before any federal remediation process actually gets underway, right?
Christopher Taylor: It certainly can, and this has always been one of the stated concerns with respect to the Superfund path. One of the benefits of what we were doing previously with respect to Staywell was that we had a certain measure of control over the cadence and timing of actions and that we were able to sort of keep the pressure on. At this point, the federal process can indeed, as you've observed, it has taken years. It can continue to take more years before the federal government's accelerated powers, with respect to cleanup, are brought to bear. I'm hopeful that that won't happen, but time will tell.
David Fair: Well, in talking with scientists and researchers, how much longer before the plume reaches Barton Pond and the Huron River?
Christopher Taylor: At this time, I don't have an estimate as to where exactly the plume is or where exactly our vulnerabilities are. I don't have that present on top of mind now, but what I do know is that we are working every single day to remove contaminants from the river. We understand that the plume is a condition that we have to deal with, and it is our commitment, pleasure, obligation, and duty to make sure that everybody who drinks Ann Arbor water is drinking water that is safe and clean and ready for them there 24-7. And that's what we're doing, and that's we're going to continue to do for decades to come.
David Fair: And so, while that work continues, are there next and more immediate steps need that need to be taken on part of the municipality?
Christopher Taylor: Well, our water treatment plant is doing a great job now, but it also requires capital improvement. We took care of our wastewater treatment plant a number of years ago, our largest municipal investment to date. We are working on a new largest municipal investment to date, and that is our water treatment plant. We are currently, as I said, producing clean, safe water 24-7, as much as you need, whenever you need. But at the same time, we are also using technology that could be updated, technology that would be more effective with respect to cleaning known contaminants and emerging contaminants. And so, we, as a municipal organization, are focusing on that at this time.
David Fair: Well, thank you so much for the time in the conversation today, Mr. Mayor! I appreciate it!
Christopher Taylor: It's always a delight! Call any time!
David Fair: That is Ann Arbor Mayor Christopher Taylor, our guest on Issues of the Environment. For more on Superfund designation for the Gelman contamination plume, stop by our website at WEMU.org. Issues of the Environment is produced in partnership with the Office of the Washtenaw County water resources commissioner. You hear it every Wednesday. I'm David Fair, and this is your community NPR station, 89.1 WEMU Ypsilanti.
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