Otsego group gets $500K grant to track public health amid contamination concerns

February 09, 2025

Updated from an original article written by Josh Sanchez.

An Otsego community group has been awarded a $500,000 grant to help track long-term health issues it says are linked to pollution.

OTSEGO, Mich. (WOOD) — An Otsego community group has been awarded a $500,000 grant to help track long-term health issues it says are linked to pollution.

It comes after several months of Justice for Otsego members working with the Michigan State University-based Toxic Action Lab.

The grassroots group has long tracked community health with an online survey. With the partnership and grant, digital tools will track that health with the “Otsego Story Project.” Community leads environmental sampling and a research fellowship with the high school are in the works, said Jennifer Lee Johnson, director of the Toxic Action lab.

“What we are developing there is a really powerful tool kit to also engaging in other communities like Otsego,” she said.

GRASSROOTS BEGINNING

Betsy Peterson said her sister, Mary Zack, started the group Justice for Otsego back in 2018, years after Zack was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at the age of 17. Zack made a Facebook discussion page and a community health survey. A hundred responses came in on the first day.

“To date, we have like over 1,000. And she just started to uncover all these rare forms of cancer, like hundreds of different kinds of rare cancers. Which is not normal for a town of 4,000 people,” said Peterson.

A breast cancer survivor herself, Peterson said many of her family members have suffered some form of cancer or rare illness. Yet, she said the risk does not appear to be family genetics.

In December, the group was awarded a $500,000 grant to expand its work with Michigan State University Based Toxic Action Lab.

“It’s going to be allowing for our small community, our teeny tiny community of Otsego to share our story,” said Peterson.

There are so many stories that need to be heard. So many people have lost their loved ones. So many people are sick. So many people are still battling, not only cancer but so many other rare diseases that are debilitating, lifelong debilitating diseases,” Peterson said.

That includes Zack’s fight against ovarian and now a rare lung cancer — a fight Peterson said has spread to her sister’s brain and bones.

MAJOR ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATION, CLEANUPS IN OTSEGO

In 2018, officials with the Department of the Environment, Great lakes and Energy made a list of known environmental contamination sites in the area. Landfills and old paper mills were marked as potential areas of interest.

In August of the same year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finished cleaning up PCB-contaminated soil in the Kalamazoo River near the Otsego dam. Peterson said there are major concerns that pollution in the area is scarring the long-term health of the community.

PARTNERING WITH TOXIC ACTION LAB

MSU professor and lab director Jennifer Lee Johnson, said someone told her about Justice for Otsego in the spring of 2024. She said she was impressed by Zack’s work.

“It’s really rare in my experience to find so many community members really activated already on a group like Facebook. It just became so clear that there’s a really powerful chance for us to collaborate, so we started chatting. We started doing some interviews. We went to Otsego ourselves, and then we saw this incredible opportunity from funding,” said Johnson.

The funding was awarded through EGLE’s Environmental Justice Impact grant in December, said Johnson. She said the joint effort is critical to bring residents shared experiences to federal and state officials.

“I think it’s incredibly important for residents of Otsego and the Plainville area, not just to have this, like, blip of attention to what has gone on, but also sustained. I think it’s also what we’re developing. There is a really powerful kind of tool kit for also engaging with other communities like Otsego. There’s a number of rural or smaller communities that are really challenged by the former or current industries and agricultural product,” she said.

The Otsego Story Project will go on for three years with several workshops planned in the fall. More information can be found at the Toxic Action Lab website.

Full article can be found here: https://www.woodtv.com/news/kalamazoo-county/otsego-group-gets-500k-grant-to-track-public-health-amid-contamination-concerns/