Lax enforcement: Following Planet Detroit’s article on the Moroun-owned company Hercules Concrete storing aggregate next to a questionable seawall, WDIV reports that although the city issued 1,054 tickets for waterfront properties with a total of $506,350 in fines, they have only collected $76,000. The Moroun property has violations that include a cracked concrete cap and failing timber piles. “Our violation […]
Posted inCommunity
Here’s what you can learn from counting hawks for 90 days straight on the Detroit River
A Q&A with Jerome Jourdan of the Detroit River Hawk Watch Every fall, billions of birds migrate south for the winter in a display that can be breathtaking to witness. Some do it every day. That includes the people who run the Detroit River Hawk Watch, an annual survey of raptor and turkey vulture migration […]
Posted inAccountability
Will Michigan’s AG break the Morouns’ deal-of-the-century grip on the Detroit riverfront?
In deep debt to its master concessionaire, the Detroit Wayne County Port Authority has been hamstrung in its ability to work in the public interest to redevelop the Detroit River shoreline. A state senator argues that it’s time to end the deal. In 2005, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s administration negotiated a deal with businessman Manuel […]
Posted inUncategorized
From the Headlines
Incinerated: The shuttered Detroit Incinerator could be demolished by this summer, according to Todd Grezch, CEO of Detroit Thermal, which owns the closed facility on Russell Street. And the incinerator’s operator, Detroit Renewable Power, has been ordered to pay $200,000 in fines for odor complaints and air quality violations as part of a consent agreement with Michigan’s Department of […]
Posted inAccountability
Federal judge to decide on motions to dismiss Detroit water shutoff suit
Lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and NAACP appeared in U.S. District Court Wednesday to oppose motions to dismiss in a class-action lawsuit over Detroit’s water shutoffs. Two separate motions to dismiss were filed by defendants; one by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and another by the City of Detroit on behalf of defendants that […]
Posted inCommunity
Detroit photographer Amy Sacka to unveil ice fishing exhibit at Dossin Museum
Sacka’s work focuses on ice, identity, climate change, and the future of a local cultural institution. An exhibition of Detroiter Amy Sacka’s photography on declining Great Lakes ice cover “Last Ice” will launch on Feb. 20 at The Dossin Great Lakes Museum on Belle Isle. The exhibit will feature contributions from artists Scott Hocking, Michael […]
Posted inAccountability
Moroun-owned concrete company storing aggregate within feet of Detroit River
An engineering firm suggested an 85-foot buffer between the river and bulk storage piles atop contaminated land. Hercules Concrete, a company owned by the billionaire Moroun family, may be tempting fate by storing large piles of aggregate close to the Detroit River near the Ambassador Bridge. Based on an analysis done for site owner Crown […]
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From the Headlines
Big $ for Belle Isle: With $4.6 million for the new Piet Oudolf perennial garden, $2.5 million for the Anna Scripps Whitcomb Conservancy, and $4.9 million for the Dossin Great Lakes Museum, Detroit’s Belle Isle State Park is seeing some serious investment these days. “Belle Isle has more projects going on than any other state park in […]
Posted inGuides
Ask Planet Detroit: What is being done about the water quality of Rouge River?
Dear Planet Detroit, What is being done about the water quality of Rouge River? A River Person Dear River Person, Well, a lot! The Rouge River has come a long way since infamously catching fire in 1969 after a worker dropped a torch into the river, which ignited waste oil and other contaminants deposited by […]
Posted inAccountability
Eye on enforcement: Dearborn’s fugitive dust ordinance
This is an occasional series in which Planet Detroit examines how environmental ordinances are enforced in Metro Detroit. After 18 months of deliberation, the City of Dearborn passed a first-of-its-kind local ordinance to regulate fugitive dust in the city this past summer. Residents who sought protection against dust reported it caused haze, decreased visibility, and […]