Pall asks dismissal of suit over 1.4-dioxane pollution Resident says water is contaminated, seeks damages

Friday, September 3, 2004

BY CATHERINE O'DONNELL

News Staff Reporter

An Ann Arbor woman is seeking class-action status for a federal lawsuit she filed against Pall Life Sciences, alleging the Ann Arbor company contaminated her property and that of at least 2,000 property owners in the area.

However, in a motion filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the Ann Arbor company says the woman's property hasn't been damaged and that the case should be dismissed.

Carol S. Shultheis, who lives about two miles east of Pall on Bruce Street, says in a complaint filed May 18 that 1.4-dioxane, a human carcinogen, has polluted her water. The contaminant originated at Pall's manufacturing facility, 600 S. Wagner Road in Scio Township, the complaint says.

Pall, which makes medical filters, denies key allegations in the Shultheis suit.

Neither Shultheis nor Pall's attorney, Steven P. Handler, could be reached for comment.

The lawsuit joins what has been a lengthy dispute between Pall and the city of Ann Arbor regarding a contamination plume stretching west of Pall into Scio Township and east into Ann Arbor.

Dioxane, says the Shultheis suit, "is at levels many times in excess of safe drinking water standards and has been present on plaintiffs' properties ... for as many as 20 years." The suit also alleges that the dioxane plume is the largest such in the country.

In her suit, Shultheis asks that Pall stop further contamination, abate the material already present, reimburse for costs incurred and pay punitive damages.

Pall says that no plume of contamination is migrating to the Huron River water intake and that Shultheis' property is neither contaminated nor threatened by contamination. "There is simply no evidence that her property is contaminated or that any contamination migrating from the ... facility is even likely to impact her property," says Pall's response to the suit.

In May, several days before Shultheis filed her suit, the city of Ann Arbor sought damages against Pall for groundwater contamination. The city's suit asks that Pall be required to use another water source to replace a contaminated city well. Those suits join the state Department of Environmental Quality's suit seeking a massive cleanup.

Catherine O'Donnell can be reached at codonnell@annarbornews.com or (734) 994-6831.