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PLAINFIELD TOWNSHIP ‒ With the click of an email, the credibility of an iconic Michigan shoe company’s environmental practices has taken another hit.
Rockford-based Wolverine Worldwide, best known for its Hush Puppies shoes, has been on the defensive this year over toxic chemicals that seeped from one of its former dumping sites into the drinking water in northern Kent County. The state has identified at least six other dump sites and says there may be as many as 15 more, sites Wolverine did not apparently test for groundwater contamination until April of this year.
In August, as residents near the site wondered whether the chemicals might be tied to cancer clusters and other health problems, the company put out a statement insisting it did not know until 2016 that waste from its former Rockford tannery carried hazardous chemicals, including a class of compounds known as PFOS.