For a green-minded Democratic candidate, the symbolism is irresistible. | AP Photos Koch oil leftovers fire Mich. race

DETROIT — For a green-minded Democratic candidate, the symbolism is irresistible: Towering piles of an oil refinery’s dusty leftovers blighted a Detroit neighborhood, thanks to the Koch brothers — and a major Koch-backed political group is taking the side of his Republican opponent.

The four-story tall mountains of black petroleum coke are gone from the banks of the Detroit River, but they’re still providing a campaign weapon for Democratic Rep. Gary Peters in his Senate race against Republican Terri Lynn Land. Peters’ environmental supporters are also pounding the issue, filling the airwaves with images of Land, black waste piles and smiling Charles and David Koch in ads accusing the brothers of using Detroit as a “dumping ground.” Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer’s super PAC plans to pick up the theme, as well.


Peters and his supporters believe the city’s so-called petcoke plight remains a salient issue for voters.

“This is not something that will easily go away,” said Michigan League of Conservation Voters Executive Director Lisa Wozniak. “People are going to remember this.”

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The residue stirred local anger when it appeared in an industrial neighborhood along the river in 2012. It was a byproduct of refining crude oil from the Canadian oil sands — the same kind of oil that would be transported in the Keystone XL pipeline if President Barack Obama approves that project. A Marathon Petroleum refinery in Detroit sold the petcoke to Koch Carbon, a Koch subsidiary, and it was stored by a company called Detroit Bulk Storage while awaiting shipment into the lucrative international market.

Residents and businesses complained that winds were kicking up a “petcoke cloud” and that the substance was blowing into homes and restaurants. Eventually, local leaders ordered Detroit Bulk Storage to remove the petcoke, and the last of it was hauled away last year.

But the ruckus gave Peters an opening to jump on another Koch connection: the millions of dollars that the Koch-backed group Americans for Prosperity has spent on ads attacking him, to the benefit of Land’s campaign.

“You’ve got to ask anybody who is willing to spend $6.5 million for a candidate what’s on their agenda, and I think it’s very clear that my opponent shares their anti-environment agenda,” Peters said in an interview in Michigan, where he’s trying to spread the message that Land wouldn’t protect the Great Lakes. “What they’re about is weakening environmental regulations, not making environmental regulations stronger to protect the public.”

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Americans for Prosperity spokesman Levi Russell accused Peters of trying to change the subject from his own political pitfalls.

“Sounds like Rep. Peters is already aligning himself with the Harry Reid strategy: distraction politics and straw man attacks,” Russell said in an email Friday. “AFP has been holding Peters accountable for his own record of supporting bad policy — including supporting the disastrous Obamacare law. Seems like he want to talk about anything other than that!”

Land is playing the petcoke card, too, though: She points out that Peters invested in the giant French multinational energy company Total S.A., which also produces petcoke — though not the specific waste that was stockpiled in Detroit. Peters’ investment consisted of $19,000 in stock, according to The Detroit News.

“Congressman Peters says he opposes the Keystone XL Pipeline because of concerns about the substance petcoke, but then we learn that he’s heavily invested in petcoke,” Land said in a statement, adding, “It’s difficult to trust someone like that.”

Asked where she stands on the petcoke issue, Land said in a statement through her spokeswoman, “I believe that local governments should determine local ordinances. If something poses a threat to public health it should be handled on the local level by the people who are closest to the situation.”

Land’s campaign declined repeated requests for an interview.

Peters said Total’s petcoke operations are just a “tiny fraction” of the company’s portfolio and that his investment won’t derail his push to tighten regulations on the substance.

“The fact that I have a small investment in a multibillion-dollar company doesn’t stop me from standing up for Michigan families,” he said.

Meanwhile, a Koch Industries spokesman defended petcoke, saying in a statement that it is “not considered hazardous” while noting that Koch entities employ more than 600 people in Michigan and that the product is no longer stored at that site in Detroit.

“Petroleum coke is a valued product intentionally produced as part of the process of refining crude oil to make transportation fuels and other products,” the statement said.

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has said petcoke is “not more toxic than other sources of particulate matter,” does not cause cancer and “will not harm nearby residents” if handled and controlled properly. But it has also said exposure to high levels of dust from petcoke, like other dust or soot, can worsen asthma and cause heart and lung disease.

EPA says that “while trace amounts of toxic materials have been measured in petroleum coke, studies on rats show that petroleum coke itself has a low level of toxicity and that there is no evidence of carcinogenicity.”

Local activists and Peters both raised worries that the petcoke could return, even though Michigan’s environmental department rejected a permit to store the product in another location. Petcoke from a BP refinery has also provoked controversy in Chicago.

Last week, Peters talked about petcoke at a Detroit barbecue restaurant with local activists and a professor who is researching the health effects of the material. The professor, Nicholas Schroeck, director of Wayne State University Law School’s Transnational Environmental Law Clinic, has been working over the past six months with researchers including biologists and doctors to take a closer look at the issue.

Schroeck said the research is in its “early stages,” but he said his team has used air monitor data to observe increases in particulate matter during the period when the petcoke piles were stationed in Detroit. Activists say not enough independent analysis exists on the effects of petcoke, warning that officials are relying on industry-backed studies.

While petcoke may seem like a local issue, Peters is trying to use the uproar over the product to paint a broader narrative about Land, while pursuing the anti-Koch message that other Democrats like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have championed. He also warned that as more crude from the Canadian oil sands is shipped into the U.S., “we’re going to get more petcoke, and I think it’s incumbent that we make sure that we know how to handle it safely and have the regulations in place to protect people who may be living around those operations.”

Activists here say people around the state are intimately familiar with Detroit’s petcoke woes because the issue received a flood of media attention. They say Michiganders were particularly concerned that runoff could travel down the river and contaminate the Great Lakes watershed.

Democratic state Rep. Rashida Tlaib, who represents part of Detroit and was a vocal critic of the petcoke piles, said voters have a slew of other issues on their minds. But she said petcoke has nonetheless helped define Peters as a candidate willing to stand up to special interests.

“He was there when we needed him and that’s just an example of his character,” she said.