The Lake Catastrophe You've Never Heard Of...

A mother loses her son. A community is divided. Industrial chemicals contaminate local water sources.

This story might ring a bell with those of you who have watched our video on Love Canal. Although this tragedy takes place hundreds of miles away from Niagara Falls, one of the villains remains the same: Hooker Chemical Company. This is the story of the poisoning of White Lake, Michigan.

It’s a saga of love, loss, and justice. The surrounding communities have fought a decades-long battle against the destruction of their biggest natural resource. The heroes of this story faced devastating losses.

As local activist and journalist Darwin Bennett put it, “Vindication is a wonderful term but very unfulfilling to those environmental warriors who lost much.” Despite a series of hard-won victories, a question hangs over the heads of the residents: is the legacy of pollution still poisoning them?

A Brief History

Standing on the edge of White Lake, Michigan, you might think that you were in paradise. Sandy beaches run into white waters and boats breeze past the shoreline. Yet the idyllic landscape hides a dark history of pollution, the legacy of which still lies beneath your feet. To properly understand the magnitude of this disaster, we must briefly look at what White Lake was like before the chemical contamination began.

Despite its name, White Lake is actually the mouth of the White River, which flows into Lake Michigan. The lake gets its name from white clay deposits found along its basin. Nowadays, White Lake is surrounded by dozens of towns and cities, including Montague and Whitehall, but it wasn’t always this way. The area has been traversed by various Native American tribes for millennia. The first white settlers arrived and established a sawmill in the 1830s. The oldest settlement had a population of 10 in 1833.

The arrival of the first major industry in 1865 ushered in both prosperity and peril. The legacy of the Tannery changes depending on who you ask. Some paint it as the first domino to fall. Others defend it as a scapegoat and a cornerstone of the community.

In 1865, the Eagle Tanning Works opened its doors on the northwest shore of White Lake. Locals often refer to it as “The Tannery.” The location was a stroke of genius, as fresh water is vital to the process of tanning leather. It was an exciting prospect for an area that offered few employment opportunities.

The tannery changed its name to the Whitehall Leather Company, and again to Eagle Ottawa. The company created hundreds of jobs, supported local sports teams, and provided community spaces—yet all the while, it may have been poisoning the same people it was helping.

The Pollution Begins

The exact point at which the pollution began is unclear. There are some reports that prior to the 1940s, the Tannery discharged its wastewater directly into the lake. After the 1940s, the company used on-site lagoons to dispose of wastewater. Workers periodically dredged the site and dumped the sludge on-site.

You can imagine the smell. Siblings Charles “Chuck” Svensson and Eleanor Carlson were tormented by the stench throughout their childhood in the early 20th century. In a 2012 interview, the pair remembered that the lake would occasionally turn red from the dye used by the Tannery. Their parents were the first to protest the Tannery, but they faced opposition from their community, which relied on the jobs it provided.

Despite this, they founded the White Lake Improvement Association. Although the organisation didn’t make much headway in their time, it created a foundation for the battle yet to come. At one point, their father gave Chuck a dire warning: he wasn’t to play in an area near the Tannery because there was a dead dog on the ground. Although the dog’s death may be unconnected to the pollution, it was a sinister omen of things to come.

However, the Tannery is far from the only company that poisoned the lake. Next, our returning villain enters stage left. The Hooker Chemical Company came to White Lake like a moth to a flame, attracted by its abundant natural resources. The plant was located in the charming town of Montague, along the north-western shore of White Lake.

According to local resident Henry Roesler, Hooker was looking at West Michigan to build a new plant when a local well-driller suggested that they test the Montague lakeshore. Roesler, who was then the Secretary of the Montague Chamber of Commerce, believed that the company chose this location because of the rich salt deposits along the lakeshore. Later, Roesler became involved in the effort to clean up the trail of disaster that Hooker left in its wake.

The plant was fully operational by 1952. Like the Tannery, Hooker’s arrival was celebrated as a boost to the local economy, which was hit hard by the post-war depression. During its nearly 30-year run, the plant produced sodium hydroxide, chlorine gas, hydrogen gas, and C-56. C-56 is a key ingredient in the production of one of Hooker’s pesticides, Mirex.

It was one of the 200 chemicals which contaminated the playgrounds, water, and gardens of Love Canal. It’s also highly toxic to humans. A courageous whistleblower later revealed the horrifying truth behind how the company disposed of excess C-56.

In 1968, the Hooker Chemical Company was purchased by Occidental Chemical. Although Hooker is most frequently blamed for the catastrophe at White Lake, it wasn’t the only chemical plant responsible. Just north of White Lake is a pit of lime. It’s a scar that reminds the community of the ongoing battle against industrial pollution.

The pit is a remnant of a chemical manufacturing plant owned by Dupont. The Dupont plant began production in 1956. Initially, it produced Neoprene, a synthetic rubber with a wide variety of uses, including gaskets, scuba gear, and electronics cases. It also produced latex, chloroprene, and other polymers.

The discussion tends to focus on these two chemical giants. Newspapers rarely mention the fact that White Lake had its own, home-grown source of contamination: Muskegon Chemical Company. The company was late to the game, opening in 1975. It was located some distance away from White Lake, in the outskirts of Whitehall.

In 1977, groundwater contamination was traced back to a leaking drainage pipe inside the plant. The contaminated water made its way into White Lake and nearby Mill Creek Pond. Locals also complained about chemicals released into the atmosphere which irritated their throats and eyes. In a 1986 interview with the Chronicle, founder John R.

Yost defended the company by stating, “Without chemicals, 25% of our food would spoil.”

Concerns (And Heroes) Rise

Some of you have probably faced a moral quandary at work. What do you do if a superior asks you to do something unethical? Warren Dobson knows what he would do. By the 1960s, the lake was already gaining a reputation for pollution.

A few of the local residents, like Eleanor and Chuck, were concerned about the pollution of the lake since before the chemical companies arrived. However, widespread suspicion was only raised when the Hooker Chemical Company fenced off their plant. These suspicions were confirmed when one brave employee stepped forward.

When the company allowed a line to spew waste gases from chlorine and C-56 production into the atmosphere for three days, it was the straw that broke Warren Dobson’s back. The 28-year-old father didn’t need a college degree to know that Hooker was poisoning the environment and its employees. In 1977, Warren quit his job at the plant in protest.

The revelations that he brought were shocking to the community which relied so heavily on the company. The C-56 waste products were placed in the metal drums that are now almost synonymous with Hooker Chemical waste disposal. These drums were then dumped on-site and cut open with axes to allow the “black, tarry substance” within to seep into the soil.

That same year, Dobson signed an affidavit attesting to the location and contents of the barrels, but it took the state another 6 months to investigate. When the Michigan Water Resources Commission finally investigated, they found 20,000 barrels of C-56 waste chemicals leaking into the soil in a wooded area of the plant site.

It took a long while for the communities surrounding White Lake to be convinced that they were facing a serious problem. This is where two more local heroes come into play. During a time when man-made climate change was just beginning to enter public consciousness, the Dahlstroms led their community in the charge against pollution. Like many in Whitehall township, Attorney A.

Winton “Wint” Dahlstrom loved sailing on the lake. One day, when he was out on the water, he witnessed the Tannery dumping waste into the lake. “I was shocked,” Dahlstrom said in a 1995 interview with the Chronicle. “There was a pipe sticking out, pumping over a million gallons a day.

It was pure sludge.” The sight ignited a passion for fighting against pollution. He joined the White Lake Improvement Association which the parents of Chuck and Eleanor founded years before.

Together, Dahlstrom and the WLIA went toe-to-toe against the Tannery in court, demanding that the business dispose of its sewage through the city sewage pipes. The law stated that businesses within 100 feet of a city sewage pipe must use the same system. However, there was an exception for businesses like the Tannery whose property lines were within the required distance but whose buildings were not. Unfortunately, they lost that first case, but Wint was a World War II veteran.

He wiped the blood from his nose and went back into battle.

Betty Dahlstrom wasn’t going to sit by and let her husband take all the glory. As her son put it, “She was all for social justice, environmental justice and a future.” Betty led the crusade to open a recycling centre in the White Lake area. She also wrote prolifically to the editor of the Chronicle about environmental topics, including the pollution of the lake.

Just as in the case of Love Canal, civilian researchers were vital in the fight against the pollution of White Lake. During the decades-long fight, there were several activists who filled this role. Wint Dahlstrom himself partnered with local science teacher Charles Vanderlaan to collect water and sediment samples from the lake.

In the 1970s, a local resident named Marian Dawson began a health survey of the 2-mile radius surrounding the Dupont chemical plant. Dawson, who had a master’s degree in biology, was suspicious of the fumes that emanated from the facility. Her neighbours reported difficulty breathing, itchy noses, and watery eyes.

Some had to keep their children inside when the fumes were strongest, and several reported the deaths of trees in their gardens. This is hauntingly similar to the signs and symptoms reported by residents of Love Canal. However, when she complained to plant manager Duane Colpoy, she was told that she was smelling “her neighbour’s laundry bleach.”

Decades later, another local woman, Claire Schlaff, would make a connection between the pollution and a string of much deadlier illnesses. In 2008, Claire Schaff went through something that no parent should ever have to experience. Her 35-year-old son, Doug, passed away from Ewing’s sarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer. While Doug was ill, Claire connected with other locals going through the same thing.

She began to notice an oddly high number of women with breast cancer. Not long after, Doug’s widow, Polly, created a Facebook group called Cancer in White Lake. Later, the pair created the Small Town Cancer Project, a group dedicated to mapping cancer occurrences in the area.

While all of this was going on, how was the government responding?

Response to Public Pressure

In 1974, the discharge of municipal and industrial wastewater into the lake was diverted to a county treatment facility. This came as a response to increased pressure from the public. The move heralded a change in public policy and governmental response. During the 1970s, testing revealed the presence of chlorinated hydrocarbons in the lake’s fish populations.

This term refers to any compound which contains chlorine, carbon, and hydrogen, such as PCBs. The testing showed high levels of hexachlorobenzene, which could negatively impact the health of those who consumed contaminated fish. In response, in 1979 the Michigan Department of Public Health advised the public not to eat fish from the lake, but this was later rescinded.

All the while, Hooker was fighting legal troubles in Niagara Falls. In 1977, Hooker Chemical gave in to public pressure and closed one of the plants on its White Lake property. At the same time, it agreed to a clean-up of the site. However, the wall truly began to collapse in 1978, when a congressional House subcommittee began hearings on the disaster at Love Canal.

Hooker Chemical and its parent company, Occidental, fought the hearings tooth and nail. It refused to provide the subcommittee with a 1968 study of contamination of White Lake and surrounding water sources. Arguably the most significant finding of these hearings was that the US government’s response to public health threats posed by industrial sites was “inadequate.” Despite this pressure, Occidental didn’t begin the promised investigation until a 1993 court order forced them.

All of this culminated in a long-deserved victory in 1987, when White Lake was declared a Great Lakes Area of Concern. This is part of an international agreement between the U.S. and Canada to protect the water quality and ecological systems of the Great Lakes. This declaration meant that the Environmental Protection Agency, the White Lake Public Advisory Council, and several other agencies could set out a plan to counteract the environmental catastrophe. At first, there was very little funding available, and progress was slow.

Then, in 2010, the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative granted the project $2.1 million. These efforts couldn’t come soon enough, and for some, it was already too late.

Environmental Impact

The impact of pollution on White Lake was devastating. To measure the status and progress of the lake, the EPA implemented several BUIs, or Beneficial Use Impairments, including restrictions on fish and wildlife consumption and loss of wildlife habitats. The restriction on fish consumption was put in place because of the chemicals found in certain fish populations and the risk they could pose to human health. Certain types of pollution were undetectable to local residents.

Paul Manthei, who grew up in the area, stated that, “I noticed what pollution was there only when they started to clean it up.”

Not only was the lake a dumping ground for industrial waste, it also received municipal wastewater. This, combined with disruptions to the environment by construction, led to huge losses of vegetation. According to a 2002 Remedial Action Plan Update, White Lake had lost “a majority of its aquatic habitat.” This destabilised the ecosystem and eliminated the food sources for many species.

Some algae thrived as a result of the increased nutrients from sewage. When these algae broke down, they depleted the oxygen in the lake, making some of the deeper areas uninhabitable for fish. A 1975 study found that the local population of fingernail clams was completely wiped out and midge numbers were depleted.

Contaminated soil may have posed the biggest environmental threat to the area. When Occidental was cleaning up the former Hooker plant, they removed tainted soil and buried it in a clay-lined underground vault nicknamed the “Temple of Doom.” Despite efforts to contain contaminated sediments, they continued to circle in the ecosystem for decades. This is just a snapshot of the environmental impact that the pollution had.

Impact on the Community

As disastrous as the environmental impact has been, it pales in comparison to the potential human devastation. As mentioned before, Claire Schlaff lost her 35-year-old son, Doug, to Ewing’s sarcoma. He was a high school counsellor and basketball coach.

Doug and his wife, Polly, were high school sweethearts. Although it’s difficult to point to a single cause in any cancer case, some research now shows that living in proximity to industrial sites increases the risk of certain cancers. The Small Town Cancer Project ended in 2013.

Their findings indicated that residents living in and around Montague and White River Township had an increased cancer rate compared to other nearby areas. There were several factors which make it difficult to draw a clear conclusion from this data. For example, neither Claire nor Polly are scientists, and participation was completely voluntary.

However, the University of Michigan continues to study the link between cancer and environmental injustice.

Despite this, it’s clear that the legacy of pollution and corporate corruption had a devastating effect on the local populace. Warren Dobson, the whistleblower from the Hooker plant, was constantly plagued by cold symptoms while he worked there. Once, he had to spend two nights on oxygen because of the fumes he inhaled. After quitting, he was unable to find work elsewhere. Warren refused to accept charity and resorted to hunting in the woods to feed his family.

The Dahlstroms faced significant backlash from the community for their actions against these companies. At one point, the Hooker plant manager approached Winton Dahlstrom in public and threatened to punch him. Betty and Wint received such intense harassment that Betty eventually moved to Arizona, where she was arrested for protesting American foreign policy. She moved back to White Lake in the 1980s, where she and Winton lived out the rest of their days. Winton passed away in 1998 and Betty followed in 2011.

Marian Dawson was also harassed and isolated. One family protested her actions by removing their son from the classroom where her brother taught. Her son was bullied and taunted, with children calling him “nature boy” and “tweet tweet” in reference to his mother’s environmental protests.

Although the “Area of Concern” label may have been a net benefit to the community, being labelled a “toxic hotspot” wasn’t great for the economy. As a resort area, White Lake’s tourism and fishing industries were heavily impacted by both the pollution and the label. The stigma that came with it followed the community for decades. As stated by former Whitehall Mayor Emery Hatch, “(The pollution) hurt business, it hurt tourism, it hurt property values.

I mean, there was just no upside to it. There were people that were afraid to eat the fish, and fishing around here is huge. And it’s going to take a while.”

The Community Today

Where does that leave White Lake today? The Area of Concern label was removed in 2014, to much celebration. However, the area’s pollution problems are far from over. According to the EPA’s final delisting report, the lake is comparable to other rivermouth lakes in Michigan.

While Michigan’s drinking water is generally safe, the state is facing a serious problem with microplastic contamination. Despite this, White Lake’s future is bright. Recent studies show that fish population growth has improved since 2007. As part of the Remedial Action Plan, dozens of aquatic and land habitats have been restored.

The land above the “Temple of Doom” is now basically a private nature reserve. Yet, beneath the feet of the residents lies almost 1,000,000 metric tonnes of chemically contaminated soil which may remain there forever.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the story of White Lake, Michigan?

The story of White Lake, Michigan, involves the contamination of the lake by industrial chemicals, primarily from the Hooker Chemical Company and other local industries. The community has fought for decades to address the pollution and its impacts on health and the environment.

Who were the main industrial polluters of White Lake?

The main industrial polluters of White Lake were the Eagle Tanning Works (later known as the Whitehall Leather Company and Eagle Ottawa), Hooker Chemical Company, Dupont, and Muskegon Chemical Company.

What was the role of the Hooker Chemical Company in the pollution of White Lake?

The Hooker Chemical Company was one of the primary polluters of White Lake. They disposed of excess C-56, a highly toxic chemical, by dumping it on-site, allowing it to seep into the soil and contaminate the lake.

Who were some of the key activists in the fight against White Lake pollution?

Key activists included Warren Dobson, who blew the whistle on Hooker Chemical’s practices, and the Dahlstroms, who led legal battles and community efforts against the Tannery and other polluters.

What environmental impacts did the pollution have on White Lake?

The pollution led to the loss of aquatic habitats, depletion of fish populations, and contamination of soil and water. It also resulted in restrictions on fish consumption due to high levels of toxic chemicals.

How did the community respond to the pollution and its health impacts?

The community faced significant health issues, including increased cancer rates. Activists like Claire Schlaff and Polly Schlaff created the Small Town Cancer Project to map cancer occurrences in the area.

What was the government’s response to the pollution in White Lake?

The government initially responded slowly, but in 1987, White Lake was declared a Great Lakes Area of Concern, leading to efforts to clean up the site. Significant funding and restoration projects followed in the 2000s.

What is the current status of White Lake?

The Area of Concern label was removed in 2014, and there have been improvements in fish populations and habitat restoration. However, the lake still faces issues with microplastic contamination and chemically contaminated soil.

What was the impact of the pollution on the local economy?

The pollution and the stigma of being labeled a toxic hotspot negatively impacted tourism, fishing industries, and property values in the White Lake area.

What is the Temple of Doom in the context of White Lake?

The Temple of Doom is a clay-lined underground vault where Occidental buried contaminated soil from the former Hooker plant. It is now a private nature reserve.

Sources

• Original Places video: The Lake Catastrophe You’ve Never Heard Of…
• Hero image source by Gogerr / openverse, by-sa.