Neighbors often complain about dust from Fort Iron and Metal, located at 9607 Dearborn St. in Detroit’s Delray neighborhood. Photo by Quinn Banks.
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  • Detroit’s proposed fugitive dust ordinance, which lacks real-time air quality monitoring as requested by the community, has moved to the city council for final approval.
  • The ordinance allows for fines between $500 and $2,000 for violations based on visual opacity tests conducted by city inspectors. Community establishments are required to implement dust control plans.
  • Environmental advocates criticize the reliance on visual tests and call for the use of real-time air monitors to enforce dust regulations more effectively.

Updated May 21, 2024: Detroit City Council approved the fugitive dust ordinance 7-1. Coleman Alexander Young II cast the sole opposition vote.

Detroit City Council approved a citywide fugitive dust ordinance Tuesday that will hold dust-generating facilities accountable for the pollution they generate. The ordinance passed without a requirement that monitors be installed onsite to monitor air quality in real-time, as requested by community advocates. 

The proposed ordinance passed out of the Health and Safety Committee Monday after a public hearing. It does not regulate residential structures over five units, including single- or two-family homes. At the council’s request, the administration will conduct a fiscal impact study, though it likely won’t be complete until after the matter comes up for a vote.

Through its Buildings, Safety, Engineering, and Environmental Department, the city could fine violators between $500 and $2,000, with higher fines for repeat violations. 

The criterion for whether a facility exceeds the ordinance relies on a “visual test” by a city inspector, which some environmental activists and residents oppose. 

Community establishments will have 14 days to implement a fugitive dust plan if found to be in violation. Such a plan would also be required in advance for any activity expected to generate fugitive dust at an opacity greater than 5% on-premises or greater than 0% off-premises. 

BSEED would monitor and inspect premises to ensure that opacity levels aren’t exceeded. It would have the authority to require further mitigation measures when it finds proposed plans insufficient. BSEED could also shut down businesses that refuse to comply with enforcement action. 

Jeff Gearhardt with the Ecology Center, a nonprofit environmental research and advocacy organization, said using opacity is an “ancient kind of old technology.” 

Gearhardt and other advocates want the city to use real-time air monitors to enforce the ordinance. He said using such monitors would remove the “human element” and require less manpower to do more. For example, visual tests require an inspector to be onsite for the test, whereas a monitor would not. 

But Adam Saxby, a city attorney, made it clear that air monitors would not be required to enforce the proposed ordinance. 

Saxby said the distinction between particulate matter and fugitive dust is opacity. He noted that the state already has regulations for particulate matter, while the proposed city ordinance addresses visual opacity. 

“When we’re talking about air monitors, often we’re talking about particulate matter levels. That’s not what this is. What this particular ordinance regulates is opacity,” Saxby told council members during the public hearing.  

For example, Saxby said that BSEED couldn’t take readings from an air monitor and use them to find someone violating the city’s ordinance. Rather, BSEED will enforce the ordinance by “visual test” and take enforcement action based on common and nuisance abatement law. 

Meanwhile, the city is in the process of implementing an air monitoring network using real-time air sensors, and it hopes to have it operating by July, according to Crystal Rogers, general manager of environmental affairs. The system will monitor air quality in each council district.

Concern over piles of petroleum coke that caused dust to blow into Windsor and Detroit eventually led to a 2017 regulation for bulk solid material facilities in Detroit. Since then, the city has heard from residents in southwest Detroit that the ordinance didn’t go far enough and called for further restrictions on fugitive dust escaping from sites storing bulk solids.

These conversations led to the current proposed ordinance to regulate the operations of community establishments including businesses, nonprofit organizations, churches, and very high-impact manufacturing facilities, among others, to minimize fugitive dust generation in operations.

During Monday’s public hearing, several residents shared their experience with the fugitive dust problem in southwest Detroit. Carolyn Catlos, a southwest Detroit resident, told council that the dust impacts how much time she can spend outside during the summertime. She said the dust was so bad that one contractor wouldn’t agree to paint her home. 

“We’ve cut celebrations short. We’ve cut gatherings with neighbors short because of the nature of the dust in our neighborhoods,” Catlos said. 

Another resident said air quality in southwest Detroit hasn’t improved since the first ordinance was passed in 2017. 

Erin Stanley, director of climate equity for Eastside Community Network, said at the hearing that the ordinance was the “bare minimum.” Stanley said she was overwhelmed by the level of dust when she recently rode her bike on the Joe Louis Greenway, which was bad enough to give her a headache, so she had to turn around and go home. 

“If you’re trying to invest in public spaces and climate resilience, then you also need to invest in people and our health and stop doing whatever corporations tell you they want,” Stanley told council members during the hearing. 

Raquel Garcia, executive director of Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, said she moved to a new home in 2017 and watched as dirt was moved from one location to the next on the property of a towing business. She said dust eventually covered homes and vehicles in her neighborhood.

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