US tube producer Michigan Seamless Tube is asking the community surrounding its plant in South Lyon, Michigan, to prohibit drinking water well drilling south of the plant due to legacy pollution concerns, Kallanish reports.

A legal representative for the company asked the South Lyon City Council earlier this week to draft an ordinance prohibiting new wells in a plume of metal-contaminated land south of the tube plant.

The metal pollution is legacy, the representative says – meaning it was produced and percolated into the groundwater system before the current owners of the plant purchased it out of bankruptcy in 2002.

Since 2004, the site has been under the supervision of the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, which advised the company to request the ordinance to meet its legal obligations. However, the company is not directly responsible for the clean-up of the pollution due to its legacy nature.