Evans Backs Residents on Marathon Refinery Pollution

DETROIT, MI – Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said in a statement Thursday that residents living near the Marathon Petroleum refinery deserve to be heard about proposals that would allow the refinery to boost its pollution in southwest Detroit.

Evans said:

“After consulting Wayne County’s public health and air quality experts, I am disturbed by the potential environmental effects if the Marathon Detroit Refinery is allowed to release more pollutants into the air. Permitting increased levels of sulfur dioxide and other harmful chemicals into the air would further threaten the quality of life of thousands of Wayne County residents. It is critically important that residents are heard and taken seriously in this process. As we’ve learned from Flint, ignoring a community’s environmental concerns can have tragic consequences.”

Evans said he planned to attend a Thursday evening public hearing on the proposal before the Detroit City Council at 6 p.m. The hearing will be held at Patton Recreation Center, 2301 Woodmere St.

Michigan Department of Environmental Quality representatives have been invited to attend the hearing, the Detroit Free Press reports.

Last week, the Wayne County Commission voted 14-0 to approve a resolution opposing Marathon’s request. The 85-year-old refinery, the only one left in Michigan, straddles the Detroit and Melvindale city borders.

Marathon argues the pollution standards should be relaxed so it can modernize the aging facility to produce a cleaner-burning, lower-sulfur fuel that would meet U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Tier 3 fuel standard requirements scheduled to take effect in 2017.

Doing that would increase Marathon’s emissions to sulfur dioxide by 22 tons a year. Other emissions — including various oxides of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, small-particulate pollution and sulfuric acid — would also be increased, according to The Press & Guide report.

The DEQ extended the public comment period on the refinery’s application to 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 29. More information is available here.

» Photo by ddatch54 via Flickr / Creative Commons