This perspective on the fugitive dust ordinance is from Planet Detroit’s Neighborhood Reporting Lab, where community reporters write about health and climate issues in their neighborhood. Neighborhood Reporting Lab is supported by the Americana and Kresge Foundations.
I was born in Detroit and have lived and owned a home in Detroit’s Hubbard-Richard neighborhood for my entire adult life.
When I moved here in 1999, the community was a mix of severe blight, vacant lots and hope. It was unclear to us if we could survive and thrive in this area due to the aggressive removal of homes by the owners of the international Ambassador Bridge. Hubbard-Richard and the surrounding area were earmarked for demolitions and new development.
Breathing in dust is a part of everyday life here in my neighborhood. From projects like The Brooke on Bagley apartments, the $950 million renovation of Michigan Central Station and the Ambassador Bridge, self-described as the “busiest international crossing in North America” that sees over 40,000 vehicles crossing the U.S.-Canadian border each day.
Even today, as I write this, I can see, hear, and smell the dust in the air as construction cranes and equipment dig up dirt and trucks track it down the block.
Fugitive dust, which is composed of soot and fine particle matter, is both visible and invisible to the naked eye. Hubbard-Richard, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Detroit, is inundated with it.
“Fugitive dust…contains toxins and heavy metals that make their way into our air, water, and soil and then into our bodies,” Natalie Sampson, a professor at the University of Michigan and the Environment Chair of the American Public Health Association, told me. “Vehicle traffic and the resulting unhealthy air pollution from the Ambassador Bridge into the surrounding community of Hubbard-Richard is a well-known and now a documented health hazard.”
In February of this year, the city demolished an old Greyhound bus station, causing even more dust and concern. Alarmingly, the community was informed of the demolition just days before the demo began.
“The most important thing you can do is limit your family’s contact with dust and debris from the demolition,” read a mailer posted on my door on Feb. 15.
The building sat within feet of residential housing, a historic church, an elementary school and a senior center. Occupants may have been exposed to harmful chemicals that are known to be deadly.
“I have never heard of fugitive dust. I didn’t understand why (the demo) was happening during the school year. Why, when school was in session – why not (the) summer? We see high dust levels,” Shanta Johnson, director of operations at Escuela Avancemos, the school adjacent to the Greyhound demolition site, told me.
Johnson said that the school received a second flyer and a letter from the Hubbard-Richard Residents Association about the demolition schedule, but neither indicated how to monitor air pollution or mitigate the dust and debris.
The proper notice provides residents with time to respond. In this case, those with a paid Crain’s Detroit Business (basic digital annual fee of $179) subscription in November 2023, knew about the demolition months in advance.
However, residents and those who live, work, and worship in the community were not notified until less than two weeks before the demolition began.
Fugitive dust ordinance relies on residents
The dust is so severe in Hubbard-Richard that District 6 councilwoman Gabriela Santiago-Romero sponsored a new fugitive dust ordinance, which the council adopted in May. The ordinance aims to address fugitive dust sources within Detroit communities. The city may now enact a show cause hearing to force compliance via court order through it.
Although it is a good step forward, the ordinance does not efficiently or effectively improve the lives of those who live in Hubbard-Richard.
Before the new ordinance, the state oversaw dust violations. There were numerous complaints of slow responses from residents. The city will now take on enforcement powers previously managed by the state’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy.
The Buildings, Safety, Engineering, and Environmental Department (BSEED) is the city department tasked with enforcing environmental compliance. Currently, BSEED has only four environmental inspectors, only one of whom is trained to inspect for dust.
According to a BSEED spokesperson, the city is hiring two more inspectors to be trained. Without additional staff, it is unclear how three inspectors can do the job effectively in a city of 139 square miles.
Santiago-Romero, speaking on an expert panel on May 8, that included city officials, suggested that residents monitor the community and notify officials to hold offenders accountable.
This puts the onus of monitoring environmental violators squarely in the hands of untrained residents, who must coordinate a collective, unified response for compliance action.
Furthermore, the new ordinance uses a method to subjectively measure fugitive dust rather than using modern instruments that accurately reflect and empirically measure what is in our air. Visual opacity is an antiquated method of observing visible fugitive dust that was established during the Industrial Revolution in the 1800s.
Crystal Rogers of BSEED said in the May 8 community meeting that “the ordinance is written such that it is the visual opacity testing that will trigger the blight violation.”
But we do not have to see it to know that it’s there.
Low fines lack deterrence
Fines for violating the new ordinance range from $500 to $2,000 dollars, with increases for repeated environmental offenses. These small fines will do little to nothing to encourage compliance. Such fines are seen as the “cost of doing business” in Hubbard-Richard and communities like ours throughout the state.
This new ordinance lacks real protections for residents and does not include adequate sanctions against developers who have a long history of ignoring rules, like building without a permit, and negotiating with the city against resident wishes. These businesses can afford to pay fines that do not deter noncompliance.
I believe that all Detroit residents should expect and have a right to clean air. I believe that our state and local legislature should create laws whereby residents are not expected to negotiate with developers for basic health and environmental protections, nor should low fines and negligent penalties be a necessary cost of doing business within the city of Detroit.
I also believe that basic protections (such as indoor air cleaners and filters and N95 masks) for school children, residents and business owners who live, work, play and worship in construction and demolition zones should be included in contracts as a minimum guarantee to communities.
Currently, these basic protections are not provided equally, and residents cannot be assured that they will be properly notified of planned construction and demolitions occurring nearby.
With low fines, no penalties, and an inability to enforce the law, it is imperative that the city take a greater interest in environmental health in development projects. With a new second span of the Ambassador Bridge planned for this community, it is imperative that we strengthen our local laws for air quality and enforce them.
I love living in Hubbard-Richard, and I enjoy going on daily walks through our beautiful, park-filled, walkable community. As a healthy person, I can do this without any difficulty. But if I had asthma or a lung disease, I would not be able to live in this neighborhood.
It is time for our city officials to adopt stricter air pollution controls that protect all Detroiters.