Utility wants to add 1,000-plus tons of air pollutants to Dearborn's skies

A utility company that supplies electricity and steam to industrial customers in Dearborn wants to expand its capability and, in the process, add well more than a thousand tons of air pollutants to the skies there.

Dearborn Industrial Generation (DIG) is proposing to add a new natural gas-powered turbine for peak power demands at its power plant on Miller Road across from the Ford River Rouge Complex.

But that would increase emissions of air pollutants in a big way — carbon monoxide by as much as 913 additional tons per year; nitrogen oxides by up to 416 tons per year, and more, according to a Michigan Department of Environmental Quality staff report on the DIG request.

It’s happening in Dearborn, where asthma rates are already twice the state average, where nearly 70% of residents are low income, and a largely Arabic area where more than 60% of residents have limited English proficiency.

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State Rep. Abdullah Hammoud, D-Dearborn, says approval would constitute an “environmental injustice.”

But DEQ staff say they don’t believe the additional pollutants will have any harming effect.

Tuesday night, residents and activists crammed a meeting to implore state officials not to burden them with still more air pollution.

Inside the school’s media room, about a dozen MDEQ officials heard scores of people object from the gathering of more than 100.

“I don’t care how many people are here — the state is going to do what they want to do,” said Saeed Haidara, 67, who said he lived just across the street from the school.

Sierra Club Representative Andrew Sarpolis said he’d submitted about 800 petition signatures of people opposed to allowing the power plant’s expansion.

Asthma is rampant among the neighborhood’s children, several speakers said.

Former kindergarten teacher Intissar Harajli, 58, of Dearborn said when she taught at the neighboring school in 1991-96, “those kids were always sick” and that “every morning I had to wipe the soot from the window sills, inside — it came in somehow.”

The owner of Detroit Industrial Generation, in a statement issued Tuesday by a spokeswoman for CMS Energy, said that the energy giant — which owns Consumers Energy — “is proud of our record to deliver affordable energy to customers while also caring for our environment and local communities” and that “Our investment in the Dearborn Industrial Generation will improve efficiency in our operations, and we remain committed to working with community stakeholders to sustainably generate electricity.”

MDEQ could make its final decision on the planned expansion in weeks, said a staffer at Tuesday’s meeting.

Although the plan might technically be legal, it is immoral, several speakers said.

“The focus is always on jobs, but that ignores the fact that this will harm people’s health,” said Mozhgon Rajaee, 31, of Fernadale, an assistant professor of health sciences at Oakland University, after she asked MDEQ’s officials to deny the plant’s permit to expand.

DIG generates 710 megawatts of power which it sells to the Midwest regional power grid operator, as it generates steam used by Ford Motor and AK Steel, the former Severstal steel plant, for their heating and processing needs.

DIG is also seeking DEQ approval to increase its allowed output of the harmful natural gas-burning by-product formaldehyde by up to 44 tons per year — after discovering through testing that its emissions were higher than previously believed.

The DEQ has not made a determination on the utility's permit requests. But a report by DEQ staff is supportive of approving the permits.

"The AQD (DEQ's Air Quality Division) has evaluated the proposed emissions and found that they will not harm the public health," the agency stated in an informational document.

Even when factoring in the cumulative effects of adding more harmful pollutants to a mix already including steel plants, coal-fired power plants and other pollution generators, DEQ staff remained unconcerned regarding Dearborn Industrial's plans.

"The proposed DIG (Dearborn Industrial Generation) emissions do not appear to be a concern for cumulative air pollution in the area," the agency's informational document states.

The utility's proposal is projected to add about 34 tons of sulfur dioxide to the air annually — to a portion of Wayne County that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined is not meeting health-protective, national air quality standards, the DEQ noted. But measured levels of the pollutant are lower since 2013, DEQ staff stated, and they believe Dearborn Industrial's additions would not trigger further federal assessment.

The proposal outrages Hammoud. In a letter earlier this month to Annette Switzer, permit section manager at DEQ, Hammoud expressed strong opposition to allowing air pollution increases from Dearborn Industrial Generation.

"The DIG facility is located within 1,000 feet of Salina Elementary School, putting children at an increased risk," Hammoud stated.

"Dearborn families deserve an equal opportunity to thrive, and permitting DIG to increase toxic emissions by hundreds of tons would severely impact their quality of life."

Documents related to the proposal are available online at: http://www.deq.state.mi.us/aps/cwerp.shtml

Contact Keith Matheny: 313-222-5021 or kmatheny@freepress.com. Follow on Twitter @keithmatheny.