Detroit’s Palmer Park has seen many improvements over the years, from renovated tennis and pickleball courts and a new dog park to a variety of habitat restoration projects.

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Home to the largest old-growth forest in the Tri-County area — and one of only seven forests in the city of Detroit — the protection of the park’s 70-acre Witherell Woods has been a key focus for community groups working to restore and maintain the park.

People for Palmer Park President Stacy Varner, and Bobbi Westerby — whose company Environmental Consulting & Technology is leading the park’s latest restoration efforts — joined The Metro on Thursday to discuss their goals and the importance of this public space.

Varner described the scenery in Palmer Park as “magical,” noting that there is work underway to make improvements to both the park’s trail system and natural areas. 

“Just like with any living thing, [the park] needs maintenance, it needs nurturing, it needs preserving,” Varner said. “That’s part of this effort, of the habitat restoration project that is going on in Palmer Park.”

Westerby says part of their restoration work will include removal of invasive species, like buckthorn, from Witherell Woods to help promote native growth.

“We don’t want to do a lot,” said Westerby of the forest restoration efforts. “We want to remove the stuff that’s not supposed to be there and let the things that are supposed to be there thrive.”

Use the media player above to hear the full interview with Varner and Westerby.

WDET’s Jenny Sherman contributed to this report.

Related: CuriosiD: Are the woods in Palmer Park a virgin forest?

More headlines from The Metro on Sept. 12, 2024:

• The city of Detroit and its fire department want to train all city employees in hands-only CPR. It’s already trained 100,000 residents on CPR and AED use – giving the city a “HeartSafe city” designation by a national preparedness program dedicated to improving outcomes from sudden cardiac arrest. To discuss their efforts and the importance of CPR/AED training, Detroit Fire Department Commissioner Chuck Simms and Medical Director Dr. Robert Dunne joined the show.
• Two University of Michigan professors have teamed up for an initiative aimed at increasing college-age voting called the Creative Campus Voting Project. They joined The Metro to discuss their efforts. 
• The Detroit Documenters recently attended a hearing by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy about possible changes to a permit for the Detroit Assembly Complex on Mack Avenue run by Stellantis. Residents are asking for the permit to be denied. To discuss what happened at the hearing, we were joined by Detroit Documenter Anna Harris and Coordinator Noah Kincade.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 11 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

The Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) has approved new air permits for Marathon Petroleum’s Detroit refinery after a public comment period earlier this year.

The permit changes will allow Marathon to operate the refinery — located at 1001 South Oakwood — at “full capacity,” and set new pollutant emission caps for the facility. Previously, the refinery was limited to producing an average of 140,000 barrels a day.

Andy Drury, an environmental engineer with EGLE, says the department will require Marathon to continue air quality monitoring through at least 2030.

“One of the bigger things is Marathon has been doing ambient air monitoring at their facility, and they have agreed based on the comments to continue for at least six more years,” Drury said.

Key updates to the permit include the removal of outdated regulatory references, an extension of the air monitoring program, and increasing the height of a refinery stack to 35 feet.

More: Union workers strike at Detroit Marathon refinery

Jeff Tricoff, a relief operator at Marathon’s Detroit refinery and a member of  Teamsters Local 283, was among several residents who expressed concerns about increased capacity at the facility at a public hearing hosted by EGLE in May.

“As workers, we know that operating everything at 100% has to be done effectively and efficiently and done by experienced people,” Tricoff said at the meeting. “Right now we are in a labor dispute with our current contract having expired on Feb. 1, and Marathon is preparing to bring in temporary workers to take our position.”

Just last week, refinery workers represented by the union voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike. The new permits were approved on Sept. 10.

Marathon also operates an asphalt terminal at 301 S. Fort St., and a light products terminal at 12700 Toronto St., both in Southwest Detroit.

WDET’s Jenny Sherman contributed to this report.

A new study published this week found people with asthma have an especially hard time breathing properly in Detroit.

The Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America rated the Motor City the third worst municipality in the nation for those who routinely need to use an inhaler or nebulizer.

The foundations’ president, Kenneth Mendez, says the group weighed how many people in a city have asthma, how frequently people die from it and the number of times the condition drives residents to visit an emergency room.

“Detroit ranks high in those three areas and that’s one of the reasons why it’s No. 3 on the list.”

– Kenneth Mendez, president of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America

Listen: New report ranks Detroit as third worst city in U.S. for those with asthma

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Kenneth Mendez: Detroit ranks high in those three areas and that’s one of the reasons why it’s No. 3 on the list. There’s social determinants of health, there’s family origins related to it, but certainly it really hits communities of color. Black Americans are three times more likely to be diagnosed with asthma, five times more likely to be treated in an emergency room. And Black women have the highest mortality rate of any gender or ethnic group. So those factors really are emblematic of things that we need to do in order to better control our asthma and work with our doctors.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: Are those demographic groups especially at risk because they have less access to good health care? Or because the factories or whatever might produce pollution that could exacerbate asthma happen to be based in communities of color or poorer areas?

KM: There are a number of factors that go into it. Clearly, your zip code, where you live, has an impact. You can tell how long someone’s gonna live from that. But access to care, additional pollution in certain areas is a trigger for asthma. People in some communities can’t afford to live in areas that do not have high levels of pollution. Those are the kinds of things that go into asthma exacerbation and triggers if you have asthma.

QK: Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Talib, for one, has long pushed to get the Environmental Protection Agency to take into account the cumulative impact of pollution in a given area if they’re going to issue a permit through the Clean Air or Clean Water Acts. If that kind of legislation was passed, do you think it would really make a difference?

KM: Let me break that into two pieces. One is, I think the laws and policies will help. The EPA has come out with a “tailpipe rule” to reduce emissions from light trucks and cars, which are significant contributors to bad air and carbon dioxide. So I think having pieces of legislation passed, whether they’re at the federal or at the state level, can be very helpful to those with asthma. For example, in local communities, you can have an idling rule on school grounds basically saying when people are picking up their children, they shouldn’t have their cars idling. Reducing those kind of tailpipe emissions can go a long way towards helping people with asthma and allergies, in particular in some of those communities that are disproportionately impacted.

In the big picture, the longer growing seasons, the additional carbon dioxide, all those things have an impact on allergies. And allergies are a trigger for asthma. Those are the things that through federal policies and legislation we can try and eliminate. The Inflation Reduction Act clearly had some incentives to reduce pollution and try and amplify clean energy alternatives. So those kinds of things can make a difference. Climate change, with the longer growing seasons, more intense releases of pollen because of carbon dioxide, are all triggers for allergies and asthma. A lot of people say, ‘I’ve never had allergies before. They’re getting a lot worse.’ And that’s because of the additional load on your system from those triggers. We need to reduce our carbon footprint. That will go a long way towards reducing asthma and allergies.

Outlier Media has a new and improved text service aiming to help residents get answers to essential questions. 

Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Outlier Media Sarah Alvarez joined The Metro on Wednesday to discuss how the TXT Outlier service is helping address information gaps about housing, utilities, and other critical community issues. 

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

Alvarez says while traditional news outlets across various mediums provide an essential service to the community, “radio segments and news articles are not always the most useful way to get information to people.”

“…and they’re certainly not personalized enough for people who are in some kind of information crisis,” she said. “So what would it look like, I thought, for a news service to really try to fill information and accountability gaps, and what would it take to do that well?”

The service — first launched in 2016 — allows residents to text Outlier keywords for additional information on related topics; or to talk directly with a reporter about a specific issue they might be facing.

Detroiters can take advantage of the service by texting “Detroit” to 67485. For more information, visit outliermedia.org/txt-outlier.

Use the audio player above to hear the full interview with Sarah Alvarez, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Outlier Media, at the 25:23 mark.

More headlines from The Metro on Sept. 11, 2024: 

• About a week ago, Gen Z Democratic Congressman Maxwell Frost toured Detroit and the state of Michigan to stump for Vice President Kamala Harris. During that time, Producer Sam Corey spoke with the Florida representative about the biggest concerns facing young people, and what will turn them out to vote in November.
• Pollution from trucks and factories — coupled with poverty — led the city to be named the third-worst place to live for people with asthma in a new report from the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. Allergy expert and native Detroiter Dr. Garen Wolff joined the show to talk about the report’s findings and what Detroiters can do to improve their air quality.
• The Funky Ferndale Art Fair is taking place Sept. 20-22. Director of the fair Mark Loeb joined the show to talk about what makes it unique.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 11 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

The Gordie Howe International Bridge is expected to be complete in 2025.

The bridge is being built in Detroit’s Delray neighborhood in Southwest Detroit — a place where, for years, residents have faced issues associated with heavy industry. Now, residents are dealing with the challenges that come with the construction of a roughly $4.2 billion international bridge. 

Simone Sagovac, director of the Southwest Detroit Community Benefits Coalition, joined The Metro on Tuesday to help us understand the impact the bridge has had and will have on residents.

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In 2017, the group helped secure an almost $50 million benefits package for people living in the area. One of the overall issues people in the community face has to do with truck traffic, Sagovac says. During the coalition’s data gathering efforts, they counted 1,200 trucks driving on Livernois Street in one day.

“Something that wasn’t really anticipated was, you know, the scale of a development like this. It is the largest infrastructure project that both countries have had in 100 years and it’s 165-plus acres,” Sagovac said. “And when they’re in the thick of construction, and there’s no grass, and no trees covering that dirt – the dust has been a huge problem for the community. People have chronic sinus conditions. Asthma accelerated in the area. And the project is trying to do things with street sweeping but the dirt gets carried on the trucks and these trucks are allowed to drive on residential streets.” 

Use the media player above to hear the full interview with Simone Sagovac, director of the Southwest Detroit Community Benefits Coalition.

More headlines from The Metro on Sept. 10, 2024: 

• The Detroit area is home to one of the largest groups of people with sickle cell disease in the country. The painful disease is caused by an inherited genetic mutation and most of the people who have it are Black. For decades, there weren’t many treatment options for the disease outside of pain medication. But in recent years, new medical technologies have helped alleviate and even cure sickle cell disease. Larenz Caldwell, a sickle cell patient who underwent a stem cell transplant six years ago; and Outlier Media Science Reporter Koby Levin joined the show to discuss. 
• The Detroit Fiber Club is hosting an immersive exhibit showcasing environmental- and fiber-based art at the Boyer Campbell Building in Milwaukee Junction through Sept. 28, as part of the Detroit Month of Design. To discuss the exhibit, we were joined by Co-Curators Sarah Rose and Lisa Waud, and Detroit Fiber Club Managing Director Meg Morley.
• Detroit Artist LeKela Brown is kicking off the College for Creative Studies’ Woodward Lecture Series. The CCS graduated joined The Metro to talk about her work and her first solo-presentation, “From Scratch: Seeding Adornment,” currently on display at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 11 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

One of the worst parts of World War II is coming to metro Detroit this month. And it’s scheduled to keep coming into January.

Each week about 25 semi-trucks will haul low-level radioactive waste from New York to a disposal site in Wayne County’s Van Buren township.

It’s by-products from the Manhattan Project, which created the atomic bombs dropped in Japan that ended World War II.

It’s also the latest in a series of toxic material shipments sent to Michigan raising concerns among some members of Congress and other officials.

That includes Wayne County Executive Warren Evans. He says there’s a disconnect between federal agencies that regulate hazardous waste, the company that owns the Van Buren disposal site and Michigan’s government.

“It doesn’t make sense to me that we would be the location of choice so often for this toxic material.”

-Wayne County Executive Warren Evans

Listen: Warren Evans on toxic atomic waste coming to Wayne County

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Warren Evans: I don’t believe that they level with us about what they’re doing. My trust level for them is almost zero. And it doesn’t lead to good results or good communications back and forth. The only time we hear about these waste issues is when a reporter writes a story and we read about it and they become automatically defensive. I’m concerned about the lack of notice (that shipments are coming to Michigan.) That leads me to be concerned about the level of hazardous waste in the material and the amount that’s coming and how it’s being transported.

Quinn Klinefelter, WDET News: The Army Corps of Engineers has said they’re not required to notify anybody if they’re sending waste to a facility that’s allowed to take those kinds of shipments, which the one in Van Buren is. So when you say you don’t think that they’re leveling with you, what do you think needs to be changed?

WE: They said they’re not “required” to. What the heck does that mean? Does it mean there’s a prohibition about doing it? They’re hiding behind a rule that doesn’t require them to do it. But good public policy does require them to do it, them or somebody, I think. Hiding behind a rule that doesn’t make you do it just tells me the rule doesn’t make any sense and you’re not concerned about the reaction of the public’s health concerns about this. If that’s the way you feel, then I’m troubled by the whole thing.

QK: You’ve had a couple of town hall meetings about this and other toxic waste that came from the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment. What are you hearing from residents about the situations?

WE: It’s real clear that residents don’t want it here. And what we hear from the federal agencies is how safe they claim to be and what the rules and federal regulations are. That’s not what people are asking for. They are asking for clear answers about why so much of it is coming here and just how safe is it? It’s troubling to me, because the agencies are answering questions in a very bureaucratic way. “This is regulation 207 and we’re required to do that.” It’s double-speak to me. People are asking about the health concerns that they have, the health concerns that they’re afraid of in the future. They are asking for solid, honest answers. Part of that would be alleviated if there was more discussion about the actual hazardous waste, the toxicity of it, how it’s being transported and how it is being kept in the landfill. That would help people determine whether the safety valves are there or not there. When you hear the agencies talk about it, they say they have a stellar track record for keeping us safe. And every year you hear about catastrophes that occur and violations that occur at these different waste treatment places. Those two notions don’t square in my mind or the minds of anybody else that has any sense.

QK: So you still have some concerns when state environmental officials say that they’ve tested this latest waste coming from the Manhattan Project, that it’s within the limits that the site is permitted to take? And there’s only seven similar sites in the country, so you just gotta grit your teeth and bear with it?

WE: Yeah but that doesn’t really make sense. There’s a significant amount of it that’s coming and there’s certainly no legal prohibition against dividing it into some different landfills. Why does it all have to come here? Particularly since the waste is rated at a level that would allow it to go to many other landfills — and many other landfills that are closer to New York than here. They can talk all day about how this landfill provides added security. But if the waste is rated low enough that it can go just about anywhere, then why don’t you send it just about anywhere?

QK: I have heard that it was somewhat cheaper to dispose of it in landfills here as opposed to other places. Have you heard that same reasoning?

WE: Absolutely. And I think that that, in and of itself, calls for a state solution. It appears to me that there are two solutions that we ought to be working on as a community. One is, we ought to act legislatively, get our legislature to refuse to take it. In other words, change the rules about Michigan being able to take the hazardous waste. That’s why it’s coming out of New York, New York won’t take it. That’s one option. That’s a pretty drastic one, but a significant one. The other one is to raise the tipping fees such that it is not so profitable for those who want to deliver the waste here. I think both of those are solutions that bear some close scrutiny and, I think, support.

There are many states that are less populated than Michigan. Wayne County is the largest by population county in the state of Michigan. It doesn’t make sense to me that we would be the location of choice so often for this toxic material. Nobody wants it. There’s no financial advantage to the county for accepting it. The disadvantages are creating a further health care risk. And we’re already rated poorly in the state of Michigan in terms of health indicators.

The Michigan Department of Transportation is lifting some restrictions for transporting certain hazardous substances across the Ambassador Bridge this fall.

Subscribe to the Detroit Evening Report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

MDOT will ease restrictions on transporting fuels and materials for batteries beginning Oct. 29. The bridge’s owners requested the looser restrictions, saying it can respond quickly to a fire or spill. 

MDOT commissioned a technical study  in June 2021 to evaluate the risks associated with transporting restricted materials on the Ambassador Bridge from Porter Street in Detroit to Canada, the state reported. MDOT subsequently collected more than 80 letters from elected officials, business owners and community members, many expressing support for the looser restrictions.

Restricted materials will only be transported during off-peak hours, under the supervision of vehicle escorts, according to the state.

Other headlines for Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2024:

• The city of Detroit is holding informational sessions this month to teach local nonprofits how to apply for grants to expand or improve their programs.
• Detroit is also offering free estate planning workshops to residents during the month of September.
• The Brightmoor Artisans Collective is recruiting volunteers for its Beautification Day event Saturday, Sept. 7. 
• The Paradise Wellness Academy is hosting a free Community Health Education series this month, featuring live cooking demonstrations and tips for preparing nutritious meals, from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Sept. 12, 19 and 26. 

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

When relying on clean sources of energy, like the sun and the wind, we need a way to store that energy for later use.

Subscribe to The Metro on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

That’s where battery technology comes into play. Batteries are used to store and transfer energy from solar panels and wind turbines. The problem with batteries is they’re expensive and can be dangerous. In some cases, people have died in explosions involving batteries in electric bikes.

UL Solutions hopes to change that. The global safety science company recently opened a new $100 million safety lab in Auburn Hills to conduct comprehensive testing on electric vehicle batteries.

To discuss the new facility and how battery technology works, Vice president and General Manager of Energy and Industrial Automation Milan Dotlich and Senior Vice President of Communications Kathy Fieweger joined The Metro.

Use the media player above to listen to the interview with Dotlich and Fieweger.

More headlines from The Metro on Aug. 29, 2024: 

• WDET’s comedy showcase “What’s so Funny about Detroit?” takes place at the Old Miami tonight! We’ll talk about the event, and some of the most interesting comedians in town with WDET’s Ryan Patrick Hooper.
• Lots of music events are taking place this Labor Day weekend, including the Detroit Jazz Festival. Chris Collins, president of the Detroit Jazz Festival Foundation, joined The Metro to share details about this year’s event.
• The Hamtramck Labor Day Festival is also happening this weekend. To discuss the festival, we were joined by WDET’s Mike Latulippe and festival organizer John Szymanski, whose band The Hentchmen are playing at the festival with Jack White on Monday.

Listen to The Metro weekdays from 11 a.m. to noon ET on 101.9 FM and streaming on-demand.

Wayne County officials met this week to discuss the lack of transparency from the federal government following a unilateral decision to haul radioactive waste from a site in New York where the Manhattan Project was developed, to a metro Detroit landfill.

Officials were not aware of the shipment until the Detroit Free Press reported last week that the waste was being moved to be stored at a landfill in Van Buren Township by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Republic Services’ Wayne Disposal is one of five landfills identified by the corp that can handle the waste.

“When permits and sites are expanded we need to know what can we do as a county commission to have a say in these decisions?” said Wayne County Commission Chair Alisha Bell at Tuesday’s meeting.

Officials voiced similar concerns last year, when a Norfolk Southern train carrying hazardous materials derailed in the city of East Palestine, Ohio, releasing toxic chemicals like the known carcinogen vinyl chloride into the environment.

Nearly 15% of the solid waste and about 7% of the liquid waste removed from that derailment were eventually disposed of in metro Detroit, yet local officials weren’t notified of their transport until the chemicals were already here, The Detroit News reported.

Just a few weeks after the East Palestine derailment, a Norfolk Southern train derailed in Van Buren Township. While there was no evidence of that derailment resulting in the exposure of hazardous materials, it only added to intensifying concerns in Michigan about the transportation of hazardous waste to disposal sites in the state.

Those concerns where echoed on Tuesday by both residents and local officials in attendance. However, Patrick Cullen of Wayne County’s environmental services department said the decision was made by the federal government — not the county — and cannot be blocked.

U.S. Reps. Rashida Talib and Debbie Dingell were both present at the meeting and expressed concerns about the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) not having higher restrictions on what materials can be transported in.

“When’s the last time they denied a permit? I want to know that.” Talib said. “Because every permit I’ve seen come forward to the state seems to get approved or delayed because they need more information.”

Bell suggested the commission could take action to help make the county more unattractive for companies looking to store waste by establishing protocols and enforcing them with fines, increasing tipping fees, and tracking permits of these companies.

In a letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Republic Services, Dingell reiterated that the lack of notice to local officials and the public about the hazardous waste shipment only heightened anxiety about the potential risks associated with transporting those materials through local communities.

“While I understand this facility is licensed at both the federal- and state-level and must adhere to strict regulations that ensure the community is protected, my constituents remain concerned about the impact on their health and environment,” the letter read. “Given the recent history of hazardous waste disposal incidents in Michigan, it is imperative that we take every precaution to protect our community.”

A representative from EGLE was present at the meeting via Zoom, but technical difficulties prevented them from providing a clear response.

A town hall is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, Sept. 4 with the county and local officials to further discuss the transport.

WDET’s Jenny Sherman contributed to this report.

Some Detroiters are without power and others still cleaning up after severe thunderstorms hit the region both on Tuesday and Wednesday night. 

Subscribe to the Detroit Evening Report on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, NPR.org or wherever you get your podcasts.

The National Weather Service reported wind gusts of more than 75 miles per hour at Detroit Metro Airport Wednesday night, with high winds bringing down tree branches and causing power outages around the region. 

DTE Energy reported more than 200,000 power outages Wednesday morning. Weather on Thursday is expected to be mostly dry and humid, with a high of 81 degrees. Thunderstorms are likely to return on Friday with heat indices ranging
from the upper 80s to mid 90s.

Other headlines for Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024:

• Outages on the Dearborn-Allen Park border caused problems for motorists trying to get to Detroit Metro Airport Wednesday morning.
• Detroit has set up cooling centers to keep residents safe during the high temperatures that blanketed Detroit this week.
• Former Detroit City Council President Saunteel Jenkins is considering a run for Detroit mayor.
• Wayne State University is holding a special grand opening reception on Thursday for its newest music venue, the Gretchen C. Valade Jazz Center.
• The Detroit Lions have made a number of roster changes to get ready for the NFL regular season.

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

Michigan’s new climate laws require utilities to transition to entirely “clean” electricity sources by 2040. As the state’s Public Service Commission figures out what that will look like, it has to pay special attention to the Upper Peninsula and the natural gas plants that went online there just five years ago.

The U.P. is a huge area with many rural communities, and power can be unreliable. Over the years, some utility rates have been among the highest in the state and even the country.

But Chair Dan Scripps said when it comes to the energy transition, the region may have a leg up.

“Largely because of the hydroelectric assets — the dams across the Upper Peninsula — the Upper Peninsula actually gets a significant higher amount of its electricity from renewable resources than the rest of the state,” he said.

Energy crossroads

Transitions in the U.P. are nothing new.

In 2013, the iron ore mining company now called Cleveland-Cliffs switched from the coal-burning Presque Isle Power Plant to a different provider. (That was made possible by a 2008 law that allowed mining companies to choose where they got their energy.)

The Cliffs mining company was the Presque Isle plant’s biggest customer, using around 85% of the load. With federal pollution standards looming as well, the Wisconsin utility that ran the coal plant, We Energies, announced plans to shut it down.

The Midcontinent Independent System Operator, which manages the region’s transmission, rejected those plans. MISO reasoned that it would destabilize the grid. And the cost of keeping the coal plant open was pushed onto customers in the U.P., hiking rates higher.

After years of wrangling between the state, feds, mining companies and utilities, the Public Service Commission agreed to replace coal with natural gas.

“This new gas-fired generation is a critical piece in shaping the future of energy supplies in the U.P. — a future that is cleaner, more reliable and affordable for U.P. residents and businesses,” said then-chair of the commission Sally Talberg in a 2017 news release.

The commission approved a plan to spend $277 million on two natural gas stations. It was proposed by Upper Michigan Energy Resources Corp., a U.P.-based subsidiary of the Wisconsin utility WEC Energy Group.

The plants are in Baraga and Marquette counties and hold a total of 10 reciprocating internal combustion engines, known as RICE units. They went online in 2019 and were built to last for decades, according to UMERC, which serves around 42,000 customers.

Scripps said the natural gas units “were put in place to solve a very specific concern, and in partnership with the largest customer — again, the mines in the Upper Peninsula.”

As part of that agreement, Cleveland-Cliffs pays back half of the $277 million over 20 years, and residents and businesses pay the rest.

Natural gas conundrum 

If the utility keeps using those natural gas units as is, it might not be able to meet what’s required under Michigan’s clean energy law.

The legislation specifically mentions these natural gas plants as a hurdle and directs the public service commission to figure out what to do.

According to Scripps, this might require a more flexible approach, like reducing or offsetting their emissions instead of shutting them down.

“How do you effectively get to net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 but maybe with more flexibility around carbon capture and that sort of thing,” he said, saying that reasoning has been used in other parts of the state.

The law allows for natural gas that’s paired with carbon capture and storage, when emissions are trapped and then stored deep underground, a technology that’s still being developed.

Burning natural gas generally emits less carbon dioxide than coal. But it’s still a fossil fuel made up mostly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. And groups like the climate think tank RMI argue that many comparisons of coal and gas only consider end-use emissions, and don’t account for methane leaks during production or transportation. According to an RMI analysis published last year, those leaks can put the climate impacts of natural gas on par with coal.

Reliability and cost

The Upper Peninsula’s instability — and the lack of affordable energy — can have serious consequences for people living there.

People in the U.P. say that “a squirrel sneezes and the power goes out,” according to Tori McGeshick, a member of the Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.

McGeshick, who now lives in northern Wisconsin, works as a climate resilience coordinator for the tribe and the U.P. organizer for the advocacy group We the People MI. She wants energy decisions to include more input from tribal nations.

Unreliable power has had a profound effect on her community, McGeshick said, especially elders and people with specific medical needs in remote areas.

“A lot of my elders live like 15 to 20 miles on the outskirts of town, and they experience the outages the most. And a lot of the elders that I’ve spoken to have medical issues,” she said. “That’s when it just becomes a survival issue.”

For her, this process is about energy justice for the entire region.

“If you’re constantly raising the utility rates and expecting us to pay these rates, but then also not giving us the reliability that should come with it, then it’s a problem,” she said.

Some Yoopers are strongly in favor of keeping natural gas. During the commission’s public hearing in Marquette at the end of July, some said they’ve already footed the bill for the natural gas plants and that it was important to energy security.

“Access to affordable and reliable energy is key to keeping the Marquette Iron Range competitive and viable for another 177 years,” said Michael Grondz of Ishpeming, who works at the Cleveland-Cliffs Tilden mine and is the vice president of the United Steelworkers Local 4950. “Cleveland-Cliffs has made great progress to reduce emissions by replacing the Presque Isle Power Plant with the modern gas RICE generators, while reducing the cost and making local electricity supply more reliable for families like mine all over the Upper Peninsula.”

Others believe a compromise can be worked out, and don’t think the state’s laws necessarily need to change.

“Renewables continue to be more and more efficient,” said Abby Wallace, a member of the Michigan Environmental Council and a student at Northern Michigan University who spoke at the public hearing in July. “There are ways that the RICE units could be made more efficient themselves. And I think it’s premature to say that the U.P. in no way could meet the goals that the rest of the state are being held to in the legislation.”

And not everyone agrees that natural gas is key to energy security. Roman Sidortsov, an associate professor of energy policy at Michigan Technological University, said gas prices are variable and hard to predict.

“People tend to forget that fossil fuels, and oil and gas in particular, it’s incredibly volatile business,” he said. “There’s very little stability in the prices.”

Sidortsov, who was a member of the state’s U.P. Energy Task Force several years ago, said the U.P. deals with different environmental factors and customers than the rest of the state. And the grid was built to serve industries that aren’t as robust as they once were.

He thinks a lot of the region’s demand can be met with distributed generation — getting power through smaller, more localized sources of energy, something energy experts have discussed for years.

The model of large, centralized power plants has worked for the Lower Peninsula and other parts of the country, he said, “but it’s perhaps not the most efficient way to produce and deliver power when you are talking about the geography of the Upper Peninsula when the distances are vast.”

The Public Service Commission has to recommend what to do with the natural gas units and determine how feasible renewable energy is in the U.P. It must submit a report to the governor and legislature by December 1.

People can reply to public comments on the commission’s energy transition study until Sept. 13.

The Sierra Club’s Detroit Outdoors program sent a group of Detroit high school students to Yosemite National Park in July. They went to meet Shelton Johnson — a Detroit native, Cass Tech grad, Yosemite park ranger and expert in the history of Buffalo Soldiers in the National Parks. The Buffalo Soldiers were Black Soldiers who fought in the Civil War. They later became some of the first park rangers.

The Detroit Outdoors program is a collaboration between the Sierra Club, the city of Detroit, the YMCA of Metro Detroit and local organizations that serve youth.

The partnership began with the re-opening of Scout Hollow at Rouge Park — the only campground within Detroit’s city limits. It has grown to include programs that get students outdoors for skiing, hiking, camping and rock climbing throughout the state and around the country. The Detroit to Yosemite trip is just one of the excursions the organization has offered to students this summer.

Listen: Garrett Dempsey on Detroit to Yosemite

The trip coincided with the celebration of National Buffalo Soldiers Day on July 28. I accompanied the students as they traveled to Yosemite to camp, hike and rock climb.

Cass Tech grad found happiness in school’s Outdoor Adventure Club

Detroit Outdoors supports student-led Outdoor Adventure Clubs in schools in Detroit and Hamtramck.

Madelane Martinez is a recent graduate of Cass Tech and the outgoing president of the school’s Outdoor Adventure Club. She was one of the students who visited Yosemite. Martinez says the program and its staff helped her develop a deep love of the outdoors and for climbing.

Listen: Madelane Martinez says she ‘found happiness where she didn’t know to look for it’ in Outdoor Adventure Club

Connecting Black and Brown youth to the outdoors

There were eight students, two teachers and five outdoor trip leaders who traveled from Detroit to Yosemite. But Black and Brown people who work in the outdoors through variety of roles came from Alaska, Colorado and California to spend time with the students.

Phillip Henderson is the executive director of Full Circle Expeditions and has been a leader in mountaineering for three decades. He traveled to Yosemite for the trip and spoke with WDET after the youth had spent the day rock climbing and rappelling.

Listen: Phil Henderson talks connecting Black and Brown youth with the outdoors

At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan is taking the opportunity to talk up the city’s plan to use previously blighted spaces as solar farms.

The city of Detroit’s climate strategy calls for a transition to clean renewable energy by 2034. City officials say the Solar Neighborhoods initiative is the first step toward achieving that goal.

The program aims to create 200 acres of solar arrays to generate enough clean energy to power all 127 of the city’s municipal buildings. While the project will not directly affect residents electric bills, Duggan says, the solar farms could potentially cut the city’s power bill by more than 50%.

Three solar farms are expected to be online in the city within the next year.

I was able to speak with Duggan at the convention about the city’s solar project, as well as the future of transit in Michigan and the growing excitement around the new Democratic presidential ticket.

Listen: Duggan talks public transit, city’s solar program at DNC

The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Mike Duggan: The U.S. Conference of Mayors has asked me to speak at a number of events for other mayors that relate to climate change, and I think the reason is that the eyes of the country are now on Detroit, with the adoption last month of City Council, the plan to take 200 blighted acres of the city and turn them into solar fields to power all city-owned buildings.

Russ McNamara: Has there been some pushback from residents who would rather have more houses near them than solar fields?

MD: No, the residents were overwhelmingly supportive. That’s how we got this passed. So we allowed the residents of the community to pick the areas they wanted in their areas, basically they have maybe one occupied block per house that weren’t going to be coming back for decades; and the adjoining homeowners who stayed are getting $15,000 a house for energy efficiency upgrades for their houses — new furnaces, new hot water heaters, new windows. And so the community, neighbors came out overwhelmingly for this, and now we’re moving forward.

RM: Has this works in other cities, or is Detroit on the cutting edge?

MD: You’ve had two or three cities that have built solar fields out in farmland, 30-40 [miles] — in Chicago’s case, 200 miles outside of city, which is a step in the right direction. We’re the first city to step up and say, “We don’t need to go build in a farmland in somebody else’s community. Let’s take responsibility for moving off fossil fuels to renewables for city buildings right within our own city. And the people of Detroit have embraced that.

RM: You’ve mentioned the environmentally friendly upgrades. What are the benefits when it comes to the electrical bill of a Detroit resident?

MD: It won’t have a long-term effect on the electric bill. So all that’s going to happen is right now, the city is spending something like eight or $9 million a year to our energy provider to provide the energy. Instead, those costs will be offset somewhat by the renewable energy that we produce, so it will probably come out about the same. This is not necessarily to reduce the energy bill, but this is to have Detroit show that we don’t just have to talk about goals in 2035 or 2050, we’re a city that’s actually taking action on climate change,

RM: Is the city going to be in charge of maintenance?

MD: So we have two providers — one is our local energy provider, DTE, and the second is a Boston-based solar panel company called Lightstar. So each of them will be building about 100 acres of solar fields. They’ll have long-term leases for us, and we will then purchase that energy from them.

RM: What else can the city do to reduce the environmental impact? Because you know, cities — especially one as old as Detroit — are not necessarily built for changing green technology.

MD: No and so we have already converted all of our municipal parking fleet — the people who write your parking tickets — have all been converted over to electric vehicles. Our buses are now being converted to both electric and hydrogen. And the thing that I’m most focused on at the moment is building up a vehicle charging grid, because now we have General Motors with several thousand workers building the electric vehicles at Factory ZERO in Detroit, and they’re saying to me, “we want to make sure that people who buy the new electric vehicles aren’t anxious about whether they’ll be able to charge them.” And so over the next year or so, you’re going to see the city of Detroit build out a network on our main streets of chargers.

RM: I just got done talking with state Sen. Mallory McMorrow. She talked about one of the legislative priorities being changes to the SOAR fund, putting more money towards public transit. Do you see the city of Detroit like being flexible with that and wanting to work with the state to build out new public transit? We’re in Chicago right now where, and all I’ve done is ride the L this week.

MD: Yeah, we are completely supportive of the proposal. I hope they can get it through the legislature. So it’s been frustrating that our legislators haven’t been able to get it passed, but we support it 100%.

RM: Any changes to Detroit public transit?

MD: Again, depends on what version of the bill passes, but in the city what would be very helpful is to add bus rapid transit to have routes with more frequent service with bumped out boarding sites that would go quickly; potentially passing lanes would get you around backups at red lights and the like. So we have a significant plan to expand it, but the legislature has been talking about funding transit for most of my lifetime, so it’d be good if they actually stopped talking about it and passed it.

RM: A Democrat is in control of Oakland County — long gone are the days of L Brooks Patterson. Is this a regional plan, or do you think Detroit might have to go on its own?

MD: Oh, no. Dave Coulter has been a terrific leader on transit. In fact, he and I and Warren Evans — county executive of Wayne County — have been on this plan for quite a while, so we would like nothing better than to see that happen.

RM: You’re a delegate for the Michigan Democratic Party. So are you even kind of getting a little bit of whiplash after everything that’s happened over the past two months?

MD: I think I would say there’s more enthusiasm than anything else. Joe Biden was great for the city of Detroit — I think he was great for the country. But when he made the decision that I think was right for him and right for the country to step aside, there is a different level of excitement and energy and all the stuff that you were hearing from Trump about how Joe Biden is too old, you know now Donald Trump’s the president who can’t hold a press conference without meandering from subject to subject and getting names wrong and facts wrong. So it’ll be a different kind of a campaign, and think we feel very good about Kamala Harris and a lot of Michigan folks feel very good about Tim Walz — somebody that many Midwesterners can identify with.

Use the media player above to listen to the interview with Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan.

Read more:

• Fain at DNC warns of possible strike against Stellantis over delayed plant reopening
• Sen. Mallory McMorrow on her DNC speech, future priorities for the state
• Detroiter at DNC who attended more than a dozen conventions encourages younger generations to tune in

If you’ve been smelling smoke on the west side of the city, you’re not alone. A large mulch fire started Tuesday evening at Detroit Mulch Co. that continued to burn on Wednesday near Lyndon and Prairie streets. 

Firefighters are still working to extinguish the mulch, which covers a lot that is hundreds of yards long. Some piles of mulch are 20 feet high. 

The smoke is affecting air quality in areas around the region, and residents in nearby neighborhoods are urged to keep their windows closed. 

Crews are pouring water on the fire, but officials say they don’t know how long it will take to completely put out the blaze. No injuries or damages to nearby structures have been reported. 

Other headlines for Wednesday, Aug. 21, 2024:

• United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain warned of a potential strike against Stellantis during his speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week.
• Ford Motor Company announced Wednesday that it’s changing its plans for producing electric vehicles.
• AAA Michigan is reminding drivers to watch out for students as they head back to school. The first day of classes for the Detroit Public Schools Community District will be Monday, Aug. 26.
• Gas prices in metro Detroit are falling headed into the Labor Day holiday weekend, averaging around $3.50 per gallon — 10 cents per gallon less than last week.

Do you have a community story we should tell? Let us know in an email at detroiteveningreport@wdet.org.

A lawsuit over the Line 5 petroleum pipeline that runs through the Straits of Mackinac will be heard in Michigan courts.

A three-judge panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit Friday shot down an effort from the pipeline’s owner to keep the case before federal judges.

Sean McBrearty, director for the Michigan branch of the environmental group Clean Water Action, said he believes this settles a years-long back-and-forth about whether the case belongs in state or federal court.

“These are critical issues that need to be heard in our Michigan courts, not in a federal court, which, frankly, just doesn’t have the right kind of jurisdiction or understanding around these particular state law issues,” he said.

Earlier this summer, the federal appellate court judges remanded the case back to Michigan’s 30th Circuit Court in Ingham County. But Enbridge, the Canada-based company that owns Line 5, had requested a rehearing before the entire U.S. Court of Appeals.

Friday’s denial closes the door on that happening.

“We are disappointed that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has denied our petition for rehearing. Enbridge believes that the case should remain in federal court given the clear and substantial questions of federal law raised by the Attorney General’s complaint,” Enbridge spokesperson Ryan Duffy said in a written statement.

The case first arose in 2019, when Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel moved to shut down Line 5. In 2020, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer launched her own action to shut down the pipeline.

Enbridge succeeded in moving the Nessel case to federal court, where Whitmer voluntarily withdrew her complaint, leaving the case with the state attorney general’s office.

But Enbridge is countersuing, asking the federal court in that case for a blanket ruling in its favor, arguing for a summary judgment to dismiss the case.

The company said it believes it would be wrong for a state court to rule before that motion gets decided.

“If the federal district court rules in Enbridge’s favor on the summary judgement motion, that ruling should fully resolve the Attorney General’s action,” part of Duffy’s statement read.

Nessel’s office, however, said it’s an important matter for the state to decide.

“It is a critical responsibility of the state to protect our Great Lakes from the threat of pollution. Our state claims, brought under our state law, will continue to be heard in a state court, and I am grateful we are one step closer to resolving this case on behalf of the state of Michigan,” Nessel said in a press release.

Enbridge said the dispute belongs in federal court because the line is under the jurisdiction of both federal regulators and international agreements.

“The Attorney General seeks to shutdown Line 5 based on perceived safety concerns, but Line 5’s safety is exclusively regulated by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA). Every year PHMSA reviews the safety compliance of Line 5 across the Straits of Mackinac,” Duffy’s statement said.

Line 5’s unimpeded operation is also protected by the bi-lateral 1977 Transit Treaty entered between the United States and Canada. In Enbridge’s view, these federal issues should have weighed in favor of the case remaining in federal court. Even though the Attorney General’s case has been remanded to Michigan state court, Enbridge remains confident that the dispute should be fully resolved by the pending summary judgment motion in Enbridge’s separate lawsuit in Enbridge v. Whitmer,” the statement continued.

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) is investing more than $50 million in Detroit to upgrade federal buildings with climate-friendly improvements.

The Patrick V. McNamara Federal Building will receive about $34 million to enhance the building’s façade, upgrade parking garages and install electric vehicle charging stations.

Listen: Detroit to receive $50M in federal funds for green infrastructure upgrades

GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan said the initiative supports multiple goals of the Biden administration, including job creation, innovation and cost savings.

“The first is because it is creating good-paying American jobs. It’s supporting innovation,” Carnahan said. “The second is it’s saving money for taxpayers because we’re lowering energy costs by reducing consumption. We make these buildings more efficient. They use less power, we save money, and then the third, of course, is that we’re making our communities healthier.”

The Rosa Parks Federal Building and the Ambassador Bridge facility are also slated to receive funding for infrastructure improvements.

Construction is expected to begin in 2025.