Detroiters rally against company’s request to pollute in city’s most toxic area
Southwest Detroit is already inundated with a toxic stew of chemicals
Audio By Carbonatix
[
{
"name": "GPT - Leaderboard - Inline - Content",
"component": "35519556",
"insertPoint": "5th",
"startingPoint": "3",
"requiredCountToDisplay": "3",
"maxInsertions": 100,
"adList": [
{
"adPreset": "LeaderboardInline"
}
]
}
]
Detroiters and environmental activists are calling on state regulators to reject a company’s request for a permit to pollute in the most toxic part of the city.
The Edward C. Levy Company, which has numerous air pollution violations at other nearby sites, is seeking a permit from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) to build a cement grinding plant in Delray in Southwest Detroit.
Edward C. Levy Plant No. 6 at 13800 Mellon St. has received 12 violation notices since 2018.
Southwest Detroit is already inundated with a toxic stew of chemicals wafting from steel mills, coal-fired power plants, gas flares, billowing smokestacks, towering piles of coal and petroleum coke, a salt mine, wastewater treatment plant, and one of the nation's largest oil refineries — all looming over schools, neighborhoods, parks, senior centers, and a recreation center.
“EGLE needs to stop the Levy Company from putting more toxic dust in the air, rather than allowing them to pollute more with a new permit,” Simone Sagovac, project director of the Southwest Detroit Community Benefits Coalition, said in a statement Tuesday. “We already have too much air pollution from many cement and concrete operations in our community, on top of pollution from other toxic facilities based here, but they serve all of Michigan. We need a better system of regulation and protection, one that takes into account a company’s history of violations as well as a community’s current pollution burden. Residents want better health protection and to protect our community from being a ‘sacrifice zone.’ Industries seem to be treated more favorably by Michigan’s air permit process than the residents who rely on public health standards to protect their health.”
There are already at least seven cement plants in Southwest Detroit, where a disproportionate number of children live.
“We have the most children in the City of Detroit living here, and the most under age 5, right in the neighborhood surrounded by concrete-making and everything else,” Angela Reyes, executive director of the Detroit Hispanic Development Corporation and a lifelong Southwest Detroit resident, said. “Teachers at schools here have piles of inhalers on their desks because so many children have asthma. So we are concerned about every new source that will put pollution into the air we breathe.”
With the company’s history of violating clean air rules, the state should not allow it to open a new plant, especially in an area already riddled with pollution, residents and activists say.
“Southwest Detroit has a cumulative air pollution problem, and the permit process is supposed to project future air pollution to determine if the new emissions would put air in the area over the legal limits for any pollutant,” Nick Leonard, executive director of the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, said. “But this permit did not consider the emissions from existing cars and trucks in the area or from thousands of semi-trucks that will soon use the new border crossing, the Gordie Howe International Bridge, when it opens in the same neighborhood. That is a big omission of some of the most pervasive pollution in southwest Detroit.”
The law center has prepared a legal challenge to the permit application.
“The Levy Company is right up against the threshold of air and health violations,” Leonard said. “This permit should be denied because the operation will surely mean the surrounding air will exceed federal standards for particulate matter — and the violation will be worse when the EPA strengthens those standards in the near future.”
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers the area a non-attainment zone because of dangerous levels of sulfur dioxide — a known contributor to asthma — and ozone that exceeds what's permitted under the Clean Air Act. Toxic chemicals such as benzene, hydrogen cyanide, and chromium also permeate the air and can be deadly. Hydrogen cyanide, a byproduct of processing crude oil, was used in concentrated forms by the Nazis to kill prisoners in death camps. Even low levels of hydrogen cyanide can cause headaches, nausea, breathing trouble, and chest pain.
The area is predominantly Black and low-income, with a sizable Hispanic population. Residents suffer from disproportionately high rates of asthma, cancer, brain damage, heart disease, respiratory problems, miscarriages, birth defects, and cognitive impairments — all of which are tied to air pollution. Just a brief exposure to many of the emissions can cause shortness of breath, coughing, sore throat, a runny nose, and vomiting.
The University of Michigan School of Public Health estimates that air pollution kills more than 650 Detroiters a year — more than twice the number of residents killed by gun violence annually. Thousands more are hospitalized, and children miss a disproportionate number of days at school because of illnesses and asthma.
“We want no lead and cadmium in our air from their current facility and no metal dust in our lungs and bloodstream from their proposed facility,” said lifelong resident Theresa Landrum of the Original United Citizens of Southwest Detroit. “We need EGLE to clean up their current mess and not start another one. We have a right to breathe clean air just like richer, whiter communities, and that’s what we’re fighting for. And this pollution, like any other, knows no boundaries.”
EGLE is expected to make a decision on the permit after the public comment period ends this month.
Subscribe to Metro Times newsletters.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
