Detroit’s industrial past and present mean people around the city don’t have clean air to breathe. This story is part of Exhausted in Detroit, a series copublished with Outlier Media examining our air quality problem and what can be done. See the full series here.
Update: In March 2024, Councilmember Gabriela Santiago Romero introduced a proposed dust ordinance that would expand protections for Detroit residents dealing with ‘fugitive dust’ or dirt and other particulate matter emitted by facilities like scrap yards and concrete plants.
“It’s obvious that it’s metal,” Delray resident Lara Rose said of what turns the puddles near her neighborhood orange after a rain. Rose has also noticed that ashy dust blankets her car. She thinks both are because of a nearby scrap yard, where truck traffic, cutting equipment and stockpiled material could all add to dust problems.
Forthcoming research provides data to back up what Rose has been seeing and thinking. A new study found iron in road dust and sediment samples at levels above national public health guidelines near the Fort Iron and Metal scrap yard. It also found other metals and contaminants.
The local community has expressed concern about Fort Iron and Metal for years. Complaints submitted by residents and State Sen. Stephanie Chang to EGLE about open-air metal cutting, dust, odors and large piles of material prompted a state inspection in 2018.
Fugitive dust refers to untreated particulate matter from roadways, construction sites, freight yards and other facilities. The dust is associated with respiratory issues, including aggravated asthma, chronic bronchitis, emphysema and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
No violations were issued after the inspection, even though the inspector observed the potential for fugitive dust to move off-site and noted the company had no fugitive dust control plan. The facility was found to be in compliance with applicable air quality laws.
Stuart Batterman, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, said fugitive dust is a big problem that has not been studied enough. And Andrew Bashi, a staff attorney at the Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, said that Michigan often doesn’t require air quality permits for the torches used for metal cutting at scrap yards as they would for factories that create air pollution.
“Fugitive dust is really seen as a local concern, and the state and the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) have sort of de-emphasized any real regulatory measures,” Batterman said.
In response to the community’s concerns, Batterman led a team of researchers who partnered with the nonprofit Ecology Center to study the issue more closely. Editor’s note: The Ecology Center is a partner in this series.
Researchers used laboratory wipes to collect material off windows and flat surfaces like porch railings and collected soil samples to test for material deposited in yards and gardens.
“The outstanding feature was that dust in this particular area had a lot of metals and iron, which fits with what’s happening at this metal scrap yard,” Batterman said.
The dust Batterman’s team found was full of potentially harmful metals and compounds. Iron was found at 224,000 parts per million (ppm), four times higher than the EPA non-cancer screening level of 55,000 ppm. The non-cancer screening level is a benchmark set at or below levels believed to cause health effects but does not account for a substance’s potential link to cancer.
Other metals like lead, aluminum, copper and nickel were also found in the dust, along with polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, man-made organic compounds banned since 1977 due to their potential link to cancer.
Batterman said the dust is especially dangerous when it settles on the ground, exposing children crawling or playing outside. Exposure to iron dust is associated with increased incidences of lung and stomach cancer.
Dust is not the only problem. In September 2021, a 25-foot-tall pile of mill-scale iron at the facility combined with wet conditions to cause what a city investigation called a “soil failure,” creating an 8-foot-tall mound in the middle of Dearborn Street and destroying a nearby business.
Protecting a neighborhood from toxic dust
Residents like Rose must now decide whether to stay and deal with the pollution.
Her house is just feet from Fort Iron and Metal. Rose said she and her husband began having migraines, respiratory problems and sinus congestion after moving to their house five years ago.
Rose was diagnosed with asthma after the move. Her dog developed allergy problems and has lost fur. She said any time she and her husband are away from home for more than a day, their congestion clears up.
Fort Street Iron and Metal on Dearborn Street in Delray.
She said she would like to leave the neighborhood, but she and her husband have had to weigh their health concerns against the cost of moving on a limited budget.
Rose said she keeps her windows closed during the summer to help manage the situation, relying on air conditioning units. But she helps care for 13 grandchildren and sometimes takes them outside to play. She’s worried about how the metallic dust could affect them.
And, if the scrap yard weren’t there, Rose said it would be a good neighborhood for her family. She said she gets along well with her neighbors and that the relatively quiet street allows her grandchildren to play outside, although she always keeps an eye on them.
Entities associated with Fort Iron and Metal have acquired dozens of properties around the scrap yard.
Properties owned by Fort Street Iron and Metal in the Kaier Street neighborhood.
Simone Sagovac, project director for the Southwest Detroit Community Benefits Coalition and resident of the area for 32 years, said she believes the company may be trying to limit its liability, although she also fears it could be looking to expand the scrap yard. The dust and truck traffic around the facility is part of a dramatic transformation that’s taken place over the last decade across the area, Sagovac said.
“I watched (the neighborhood) systematically be dismantled,” she said. “The houses (were) bought and torn down, and people moved.”
Planet Detroit contacted Fort Iron and Metal for comment but did not receive a response.
A fugitive dust regulation gray area?
Rose believes the city could do more to improve life on Kaier Street, like requiring an enclosure around the scrap yard to limit dust or reducing the height of material that can be piled up.
She also says the city should do a better job of cleaning Dearborn Street, where most of the truck traffic is, and resume street sweeping on Kaier during the day so it doesn’t cover her car with more dust.
City officials did not immediately respond to inquiries.
Some sources of fugitive dust may be subject to federal and state air pollution laws and rules. But scrap yards like Fort Street Iron and Metal, operating since the mid-1990s, often don’t require federal air quality permits. The 2018 inspection report cites a state law that exempted the torch-cutting equipment used in scrap metal processing from requiring such a permit.
State regulators say the Fort Street operation has not met the threshold for requiring the permit under the revised rules, which exempt portable cutting equipment for non-production uses as long as it is not a nuisance.
State regulators also said complaints have declined recently, though four complaints since 2018 were “described in such a way that they may have been attributable to either open burning or torch-cutting.”
However, the department said it has not witnessed this taking place and has not had a reason to inspect the facility again since 2018.
Bashi would like to see more fugitive dust sources like scrap yards come under federal air permit requirements so that regulators and the public can have a chance to weigh in on how operations could impact air quality before allowing a facility to open or expand.
“That permitting point is where (regulators) look at… proposed emissions, and they look at what the regional air quality looks like and then…determine whether they should grant a permit,” Bashi said. “But when you don’t need a permit, that assessment is never made.”
Tighter air quality restrictions may help. The EPA has proposed lowering its PM2.5 standard under the Clean Air Act, which will likely impact Southwest Detroit polluters. Parts of Southwest Detroit are in the 99th percentile for PM2.5 pollution in the state, and much of Southeast Michigan was out of compliance for PM2.5 from 2005 to 2012.
“This will likely… trigger a process to try to bring the area into attainment, and this is a huge deal,” Batterman said.
EGLE spokesperson Hugh McDiarmid said a nonattainment designation could affect existing dust-producing facilities. However, implementing a new nonattainment designation could take until 2027.
Detroit City Councilperson Gabriela Santiago-Romero introduced a proposed ordinance in October that would tighten existing city codes governing fugitive dust by adding additional reporting requirements and creating a Fugitive Dust Division within city government. It also would establish new fines from $500 and $2,000 for violations, a portion of which would support a Detroit Fugitive Dust Fund used to enforce the ordinance.
Sagovac said the city could use its planning and zoning powers to offer residents greater protection by requiring facilities like Fort Iron and Metal to have a larger spatial buffer between themselves and residential areas. The city is looking at such zoning issues through the Zone Detroit process.
Lawsuits are another option. The City of Dearborn sued Pro V Enterprises this year for dust pollution from its facility near the Detroit border just north of Delray. The two parties settled, with Pro V Enterprises pledging to spend $1 million toward mitigating fugitive dust pollution from its facility.
Until things change, Rose and her husband will continue to keep their windows closed and make weekly trips to the car wash. But this will not address her concern for her grandchildren, which she said was her biggest source of worry, casting a shadow over largely positive feelings about the neighborhood.
“If Fort Iron and Metal weren’t there, I would feel A-OK to stay,” she said.
This series is funded through a civic science and journalism collaboration grant through the Rita Allen Foundation with support from the Center for Cooperative Media at Montclair State University. Journalism organizations Planet Detroit and Outlier Media and civic science organization Ecology Center partnered to produce the stories for this project. Planet Detroit and Outlier Media made all editorial decisions independently of Ecology Center, which provided technical expertise and guidance.