Detroiters bear health burden of weak air quality regulation

Cancer and other diseases are rampant in Michigan’s most polluted zipcode in Southwest Detroit, and though health researchers acknowledge that the pollution causes illness, Michigan allows factories and other industrial polluters to operate on the honor system when it comes to air emissions.

A Detroit Free Press series by Tina Lam explores what life is like for the people stuck in Michigan’s most contaminated neighborhoods.

Neighbors describe dark clouds that drift in, sparkly metallic fallout, foul odors and constant acrid smells.

By itself, the state says, each industrial plant in and around the area emits no more of the chemicals and soot particles than allowed, and that there is far less pollution there now than there was decades ago, before many plants installed modern pollution controls.

But neighbors say the state doesn’t take into account the cumulative effects of the soot and chemicals released from all the plants in the area, and the state doesn’t have enough staff to check that companies are emitting only the pollution they are allowed. The companies self-report their annual pollution and even accidental spills to state regulators.

Children are especially hard hit by air pollution and unlike other states, Michigan does not have limits on how close schools can be to highways and industry.

There are seven state air monitors in Detroit, but none in the heavily industrial 48217 ZIP code. A year ago, residents of 48217 invited a California group, Global Community Monitoring, to teach them how to do air testing using sampling buckets. Last fall, tests showed high levels of methyl ethyl ketone, a chemical that, at high levels, can irritate the lungs and affect the nervous system.

Vince Hellwig, chief of the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources and Environment’s Air Quality Division tells the Free Press that the department is short staffed as a result of budget cuts over the last three years.

When the state took over air quality monitoring from Wayne County in 2001, the county had more than 50 people who wrote permits for major polluters, inspected those polluters’ operations to make sure they were in compliance, responded to citizens’ complaints about them, and issued violation notices to companies.

Now there are only 10 people to monitor the air emissions of all of the industrial facilities in Wayne County.