Community residents raised concerns about a permit request submitted by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) for both their Detroit Assembly Complex Mack Plant and their Jefferson North Assembly Plant (JNAP) in an online hearing held Wednesday by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE). The request was to make modifications to the assembly […]
Posted inAccountability
Did Michigan violate civil rights law with its permit to US Ecology?
In November of 2018, an explosion at a US Ecology facility just outside Grand View, Idaho, population 450, killed one person and injured three. The official cause for the incident was identified as “non-conforming waste in the treatment process” or a chemical reaction caused by materials that weren’t supposed to be there. “Most of the […]
Posted inAccountability
Jamesa Johnson-Greer: A conversation on why poor communities will suffer the most from climate change
Since the murder of George Floyd and the rise of Black Lives Matter protests in cities across the U.S., many institutions — even those without an obvious connection to this broader movement — have begun to reflect on the racial inequities within their fields. That’s no different for environmental organizations, which have traditionally been led […]
Posted inGuides
Hog Island and Detroit’s ‘park question’: A brief history of Belle Isle
When the gun smoke ceased just before 1845, the island became a popular spot for romantic picnics. So the city announced it would change the name. In 1870, Detroit had a problem. The City Council had the desire and funds to build a leisure park in downtown Detroit, but could not settle on a location. […]
Posted inAccountability
How has flooding impacted Belle Isle’s ‘imperiled’ Wet-Mesic Flatwoods forest?
Kevin Bingham estimates the age of a dead oak tree, a piece of which is being used to block off a flooded portion of Belle Isle’s Central Avenue, at 195 years. The oak was likely killed years before the flooding that has hit much of the woods on the eastern end of the island. But […]
Posted inVoices
OPINION | Fix the damn dams: Rethinking excessive privatization of public infrastructure
Monica Plawecki This piece was originally published by the Southeast Michigan Sustainable Business Forum. In the few short months that have passed since a week of heavy rain caused the failure of the Edenville and Sanford Dams, much of the news coverage of the disaster has focused on the finger-pointing that has arisen in the […]
Posted inGuides
Why do we call 48217 Michigan’s ‘most polluted zip code’?
Experts say more air quality monitoring and better assessment methods are needed to understand how cumulative exposures to pollution affects communities. Planet Detroit was recently asked about the claim—frequently repeated by journalists—that Detroit’s 48217 zip code, home to the Boynton and Oakwood Heights neighborhoods, is Michigan’s “most polluted.” The commenter referred to this as a […]