- A coalition in Metro Detroit advocating for stricter air quality regulations and cleaner technology at Cleveland Cliffs’ Dearborn Works to address harmful emissions.
- During Air Quality Awareness Week, the group Clear the Air held events and pushed for measures such as a cumulative impact assessment and a countywide ordinance against fugitive dust.
- Speakers at nearby Salinas Elementary demanded significant changes, including an upgrade to cleaner steel technology and improved air quality monitoring in the community.
A band of Metro Detroit residents, air quality advocates, and public officials stood in the shadow of Cleveland Cliffs’ Dearborn Works smokestacks Thursday morning to demand state regulators hold the steelmaker and other corporate polluters accountable for harmful emissions in surrounding communities.
The press conference was organized by Clear the Air, a newly launched coalition promoting and advancing clean air and public health policies in Southeast Michigan. This week, Clear the Air organized a series of events in Detroit, from film screenings to community workshops, in recognition of Air Quality Awareness Week.
Neighborhood activists and environmental groups called for state regulatory bodies to implement a cumulative impact assessment, the creation of a countywide fugitive dust ordinance, and a commitment from Cleveland Cliffs to replace its blast furnace with an investment in cleaner steel technology.
“We are here as a coalition of real people with real names who are impacted with real health issues once again, to tell the world no more,” said Samra’a Luqman, a member of Concerned Residents of South Dearborn and Clear the Air’s steering committee.
“We are united. We know better. We know there is more that our government can do for us.”
Communities along the Rouge River, such as South Dearborn and Southwest Detroit, are regularly exposed to train and truck exhaust, emissions, and dust from Cleveland Cliffs and surrounding plants and factories.
The speakers convened at Salina Elementary School, where amid speeches against the corporate polluters and a lack of state regulation, laughs could be heard from a group of schoolchildren playing on a jungle gym set nearby.
“We’re here talking at Salinas, where kids are playing, attempting to learn, literally in the shadow of a great injustice that echoes the calls of communities embattled by environmental racism and neglect across our state,” said Andrew Bashi, a staff attorney at Great Lakes Environmental Law Center.
Bashi said a cumulative impact assessment would ensure state officials account for the emissions of existing and proposed facilities before granting a permit. Legislation introduced in the Michigan Legislature in 2021 to address cumulative impacts did not make it out of committee.
Had a cumulative impact law been in place, emissions from facilities in already-burdened neighborhoods – such as the Stellantis facility on Detroit’s eastside, which has racked up multiple air quality violations – might have been prevented.
Other speakers included Just Air founder Darren Riley and Dearborn environmental health manager Samir Deshpande of the city’s public health department. Both parties partnered to launch a citywide air-quality monitoring system that can send public text alerts when harmful pollutants rise in concentration. Wayne County launched 100 air monitors across its 43 communities in partnership with JustAir this week.
Deshpande invited city residents to give feedback on the city’s multiyear Master Land Use plan, which will guide decision-making on where and when new developments and infrastructure occur.
“Based on this, it can lay the groundwork for a greener, healthier Dearborn or not,” he said.
Cleveland Cliffs could modify its coal-burning furnace in coming years
In 2007, the Dearborn Works factory, located at 1642 Schaefer Hwy, rebuilt its blast furnace, which relies on coal burning to smelt industrial metals.
Maricela Gutierrez, a policy strategist at the nonprofit advocacy group Industrious Labs, said the factory’s blast furnace is due for a relining in the next years.
“This is a decision that we absolutely must disrupt because this is an investment of hundreds of millions of dollars,” Gutierrez said.
She added, “If they invest in that relining, it will lock in pollution in Dearborn for up to two more decades” by extending the blast furnace’s lifespan.
The U.S. Department of Energy has already provided $575 million toward Cleveland Cliffs to begin transitioning toward cleaner steelmaking in its steelmaking plants in communities such as Middletown, Ohio.
In addition to calling for cumulative impacts and a shift to fossil-fuel steelmaking, speakers also advocated for an ordinance against fugitive dust across Wayne County. Only Dearborn has such a policy in place, and a proposed ordinance in Detroit is in the works.
“There are ways that governments can enforce their ordinances, just in the same way that they enforce blight ordinances or traffic tickets,” said Luqman.
