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ESG 1500 News Blitz

sharing environmental science through the news 

Detroit said Goodbye to its Trashy Neighbor

11/11/2019

8 Comments

 
Summary: ​After many controversial decades, in March of 2019, the company that owns Detroit’s incinerator announced that it would be shutting down permanently due to financial and extensive repairs costing more than 140 million dollars.  This facility has been raising concerns in the community for years because of the odor and noises it gives off along with violations of state permits. Michigan Department of Environmental Quality records show that the incinerator exceeded pollution emissions standards more than 750 times within the last five years along with being penalized nearly 50 times for odor that forced neighbors to stay inside.  There have been reports that the Detroit incinerator emits nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, and lead into the atmosphere. This has led to increased rates of asthma in the community surrounding the incinerator for years. The community is happy to finally have cleaner air for their children to grow up in. 

This facility provided power to Detroit’s downtown and midtown areas through a steam loop. The power is now coming from Detroit Thermal through natural gas. The city transferred the trash contract to another company and the rates were locked in through the remainder of the contract (expires in 2021) therefore there will be no added costs for taxpayers.   The next step for this site will include environmental and soil testing. This more than likely will result in remediation.

Now that the incinerator is closed, the city of Detroit will have the ability to influence what comes next for the property. The community is hopeful for the future after the city said they would not implement a new waste incinerator and started taking legal action to make this stay true. 
Why we should care? Since the incinerator is one of the worst polluters in Detroit, this permanent shut down will help improve the overall health of Detroit’s community. ​
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Credit: AdobeStock_250623628.jpeg
Example News Article:
https://www.michiganradio.org/post/detroit-incinerator-announces-it-will-permanently-shut-down

This article discusses the abrupt shut down of Detroit’s Incinerator. It came as a surprise to the community of Detroit that their controversial neighbor would be leaving forever. I found the amount of violations they broke interesting. I can’t believe that even though there are regulations for places like this to protect the health of the community they still decide to break them. It makes you wonder if the people in charge lived in the community and had family members that inhaled the air everyday if they would have made different decisions with what they release into the air. 
Science in Action.
Dr. Joe Schwarcz is the Director for the Office for Science and Society at McGill University. 

​Dr. Joe Schwarcz is well known for his public lectures on various scientific topics. He has won numerous awards for teaching chemistry and interpreting science. Dr. Joe Schwarcz wrote an article about pollution from incinerators. This article is relevant to this topic because he gives pros and cons to incinerator use. Most articles that are found relating to incinerator use are on the negative impacts they have on the environment and the community health. As mentioned in the article it is hard to decide what the correct opinion is because although incinerators produce greenhouse gases, landfills produce methane which could be argued is worse. The article just goes to show that there isn’t an easy answer when it comes to eliminating or storing trash. 

8 Comments
Rob Mosesov
11/11/2019 12:49:54

I agree with the point that insecticides won't stop mosquitoes from evolving. Since mosquitoes have very short lifespans, multiple generations are able to take advantage of natural selection and develop immunity to insecticides in a relatively short period of time. So instead of controlling mosquito populations, pesticides will impact organisms that were never intended for their use, like us humans! Even marine animals such as dolphins are impacted by synthetic-chemical residues. Instead of pesticides, tropical nations can use more mosquito nets and use predatory creatures to protect against mosquitoes. Organisms that would be useful against mosquitoes include praying mantises and spiders, like the orb-weaver kind due to their enormous webbing!

Reply
Rob Mosesov
11/11/2019 12:52:23

I meant to comment on the blog about mosquito populations and accidently commented on this one, I sincerely apologize!

Reply
Prof Papuga
11/15/2019 12:05:19

No problem Rob. I counted toward your week 1 response.

Lee Simmons
11/11/2019 15:55:06

In one of my previous environmental science classes we did a full multi-day mock trial about this very incinerator plant vs. the people of Detroit. I was the top lawyer defending the incinerator plant and at the end of the court case, the judge (our professor) ruled in favor of the incinerator plant. So in our scenario not only did the plant stay open, but we actually managed to get even more funding and subsidies from the state and city government. My point of explaining all this is to say that I'm simply glad that the real life version of this didn't turn out like our mock scenario, and that the people of Detroit actually came out on top.

Reply
Tyler Dudenas
11/11/2019 19:17:00

Wow,
first of all this sounds like great news for the City of Detroit assuming that nobody was negatively impacted by switching the way in which they would receive their power. It is also a good feeling as they are switching to a natural gas as we learned in class that it is cleaner and less harmful to the environment and air quality. It is absolutely baffling that the company that ran the incinerator consistently was breaking the rules and regulations, along with allowing more than 750 million times the pollution than the standard allows for. It is distressing because it leads me to think that the consequences of not only breaking the standards are not very harsh. It is just really sad because we are not talking about littering, we are talking about a company putting 750 times the amount of pollutant standard in the air and not being held accountable for it. Like the author mentions, what is the point of regulations is there is no consequences for breaking them. Despite all this, the fact that the city of Detroit mentions that they are not interested in opening a new incinerator is very promising. Whether we will depend on natural gas for the foreseeable future or just the immediate future is still unknown, but at least we can say we made a good first step. One question I have is how much influence will the citizens of Detroit have when it comes to deciding what direction to move in. I really hope they have a sizable influence because this is their city and they are the people who have to deal with the environmental impacts of choosing which energy to use. With this in mind I hope we can find a resolution that puts the health of the people before making a profit. I'd like to end this by saying the article title was great.

Reply
Mariam Elalem
11/12/2019 07:04:23

I knew about the incinerator plant before and I was only able to assume what kind of pollution it would cause, but it seems that it is much worse than I imagined. It is also surprising to me that the people of Detroit are somehow forced to pay taxes to have their health and air degraded by this incinerator plant, while the city officials never considered those consequences seriously until this financial crisis.

Reply
Brendan Alvis
11/13/2019 09:23:59

While there are certainly benefits from having the incinerator removed, I am curious as to what will become of the trash now? If not in the incinerator, where else will it go? Into a landfill? I am glad that less pollution and odor will be entering these communities and that natural gas, a cleaner alternative, is being used. However, there are still some problems that remain unsolved.

Reply
Tyler Travis
11/13/2019 12:03:19

This is a very interesting story that I never heard about until just now. It is surprising to me that a company emitting such detrimental pollutants into the atmosphere was allowed to do so for so many years. They illegally exceeded pollution standards over 750 times and were not held accountable for this? Absolutely ridiculous. This alone should cause them to be shut down. I am happy to hear that they will be using natural gas, which is a cleaner and less harmful alternative to the environment and air quality. I am very concerned as to why this change took so long to occur. Are people not concerned? I am sure they are and if they are, why have they not had a voice and platform to display their opinions? With this change, the city of Detroit will certainly be a cleaner, more eco-friendly environment one step at a time which is something to be excited about.

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