Community advocates spotlight impacts of pollution in metro Detroit

Members of the newly formed Clear the Air coalition on Monday hosted policymakers and environmental justice advocates as they toured areas in metro Detroit bearing the brunt of industrial pollution. 

Community activists Theresa Landrum and Simone Sagovac were joined by U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit) and Michigan House Majority Floor Leader Abraham Aiyash (D-Hamtramck) in touring sites in Detroit, Ecorse, River Rouge and Dearborn, where residents continue to face a number of environmental health concerns.

At the Kemeny Recreation Center, just a short distance away from the Marathon Petroleum Corporation’s Detroit Refinery, Sagovac explained that residents of environmental justice communities like those on the tour are typically communities of color, lower-income and face issues with job insecurity, distressed housing, a lack of access to health care and educational resources, as well as potential language barriers. 

Environmental justice communities host most of Michigan’s heavy industry, leaving residents to face the negative health impacts, Sagovac said, noting that residents of Michigan’s 48217 ZIP code in Southwest Detroit live in what is considered the state’s most polluted ZIP code. 

In addition to high rates of asthma, residents of environmental justice communities in Detroit face concerns with high blood pressure, kidney damage, cancer and birth complications, including difficulty getting pregnant and increased instances of miscarriage, Sagovac said. 

Street sweepers sent to clean these areas kick up dust and particulate matter making it harder for residents to breathe, Sagovac said, calling for solutions in zoning near industrial facilities, the dust and particulate emitted by these facilities, as well as noise and vibration safety and home repairs. 

Sagovac also called out solutions that are already on the books in Detroit, but were not being enforced, including Detroit’s anti-idling ordinance, and a proposed “fugitive dust” ordinance that would expand protections for residents from dust emitted by industrial facilities. 

State Sen. Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit) and state Rep. Donavan McKinney (D-Detroit) who attended the presentation before the tour, also outlined policy solutions they had proposed to combat the cumulative impacts of having multiple polluting facilities in one area. 

Chang said that her Senate Bill 26 would ensure that the money polluting companies pay for air quality violations is sent to an air quality enforcement and mitigation fund to ensure it comes back to the communities that are directly impacted for things like air quality monitors, health impact assessments or asthma medication. The bill has passed through the Senate and is currently awaiting a vote on the House Floor, Chang said. 

McKinney noted his recent efforts on a package of bills eliminating the Gov. Rick Snyder-era Environmental Rules Review Committee, which was criticized by environmental organizations as well as the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy for creating delays in its rulemaking process, as well as his role as the majority vice chair on the House Appropriations Environment, Great Lakes and Energy Subcommittee, to ensure the department receives appropriate funding. 

At the end of the tour, Aiyash shared plans for a reintroduction of a bill he brought forward in 2021, saying it would be rolled out in the next month.

House Bill 4777, or the Protecting Overburdened Communities Act, would have required the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) to consider the cumulative impacts of pollution prior to issuing permits to a company. 

“This legislation would effectively give EGLE the opportunity and the power to reject a permit, if that particular community — be it Delray; Southwest Detroit; Poletown; the East Side — if there is an excess amount of pollutants that are seeped into the community through the air, land and water,” Aiyash said.

“This is critical legislation because for the first time ever, they now have to consider public health as a parameter. …  As we heard today, each company can go file and they can say we are going to emit this type of pollutant, so long as it’s not the same type,” Aiyash said. “You can put six, seven, eight, nine, 10 different factories side by side, if each of them are releasing a different type of pollutant, then they would be granted that permit because they are not exceeding the overall threshold of that community.”

Landrum, Sagovac and other area residents pointed out a number of facilities located in close proximity to residential neighborhoods, including U.S. Steel, whose facilities border much of Ecorse and River Rouge.

“This area, as I told you, River Rouge, Ecorse and Southwest Detroit, it has a huge African-American population. And as I mentioned earlier we have more than 42 major and minor polluting sources. Well, before that, we had a whole bunch more, and we’re gonna pass areas that used to be totally industrialized,” Landrum said.

Rhonda Anderson, a retired environmental justice organizer at the Sierra Club, pointed to a large pile of slag located in a residential area off of Jefferson Avenue. While community members tried to figure out what the piles were, residents said the dust was a major problem, Anderson said. One resident later noted that the dust was shiny at night, indicating that it contained powdered metals. 

These piles have continued to grow over the years, and continue down Jefferson Avenue nearing the Rouge River, Anderson said. 

In Belanger Park, nearby DTE’s now defunct River Rouge Plant, pickup trucks towing boat trailers line the parking lot, while excavators work in a nearby area cordoned off with orange plastic fencing. 

The park was closed to visitors after elevated levels of lead and cadmium were found in soil samples taken ahead of a DTE demolition project. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began cleaning up the site on April 1.

According to the EPA, the contaminated soil will be excavated and removed, and sent to a regulated waste facility for proper disposal. It will be replaced with clean soil and replanted. 

Landrum expressed concerns at how the contaminants would impact anglers who continue to fish in the area near the park.

“A friend of mine in the EPA, said, ‘Teresa, if it’s in the soil, it’s in the water,’” she said. 

“In my opinion, the fish that they’re catching has been damaged and polluted and they’re dangerous,” Landrum said. 

In Dearborn, Salina Elementary and Salina Intermediate School sits a short distance away from the Ford Rouge Complex and the Cleveland-Cliffs Steel plant and the Dearborn Industrial Generation power plant. 

In 2023, Cleveland-Cliffs reached a $100 million settlement with the EPA after violating air quality standards for several years, exceeding limits on lead and manganese released into the air. As part of the settlement, the company must supply nearby residents with home air purifiers. 

Samra’a Luqman, who has lived in the South end of Dearborn for more than 30 years, emphasized the importance of focusing on the people living in polluted areas over health statistics.

Luqman said when her son was 6 months old, he had a tumor in his mouth. By the time he was 4 or 5 years old, he had high levels of lead in his blood, Luqman said. 

“That lead poisoning didn’t come from drinking water because we drank bottled water all his life. It came literally literally from the air we breathe. So those smoke stacks you see in the background there, they actually emit lead into the air. You’re breathing lead and you’re getting poisoned whether you like it or not,” Luqman said.

“When we look at the impacts of pollution, again, this is not numbers. These are actual people. When we say you know, nasal cancer is one of the rarest forms of cancers in the United States …. I can tell you I know five people personally who have died from it,” Luqman said. 

According to the American Cancer Society, nasal cavity and paranasal cancer make up 3 to 5% of all head and neck cancers in the United states. Roughly 2,000 cases are diagnosed in the U.S. each year.

The community also faces issues with noise pollution from trucking traffic, Luqman said. 

“This is one big happy family. This community is a community, and when we’re told often like, ‘Why don’t you just leave?’ I mean, we were here first, first of all. Second of all, that question typically comes from a place of privilege,” Luqman said. 

Over two-thirds of residents in the area receive some form of state assistance or food assistance, Luqman said, meaning they cannot afford to leave.

“Aside from all those issues, this really is a place that, like, I attended these schools, I want my son to attend these schools. I want their kids to attend the schools. We all know each other,” Luqman said. “I can yell at my neighbor’s kid when he’s riding his bike in the street and I know if my kid’s doing something wrong, my neighbor is gonna do the same thing for mine and look out for each other. So we’re not leaving here.”