by: Shelby Jouppi

Detroit and Wayne County are home to a disproportionately large number of significant sources of air pollution. These facilities are required to have a permit to pollute, and the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) that routinely inspects them and responds to complaints will issue a violation notice if the facility breaks that permit.

About half of the major and mega sources of air pollution in Wayne County have received multiple violation notices since 2018.These companies have exceeded their allowed pollutant levels, failed to keep accurate records of their emissions, or disturbed the neighborhoods around their facilities with offensive odors or potentially dangerous fallout.

Much of this goes on behind the scenes, and a new tool from Planet Detroit and myself makes it easier to keep track of these violations. The Michigan Air Permit Violation Dashboard updates every day with the newest violation notices issued by EGLE and includes an interactive map where users can explore each facility’s violation history.

Data from this project shows that Detroit and downriver neighborhoods are battling a high concentration of large sources of air pollution that chronically break their permits.

Three major polluters in the industrial corridor around the Ford River Rouge Complex have violated their permits more than 10 times in the past six years. Take Cleveland Cliffs, for example, a steel manufacturing megasite on the border of Dearborn and Detroit. It has received 18 violation notices, most recently for failing to test for mercury emissions, emitting dark smoke into the air and releasing slag pit and sulfur odors into the community. 

When overlayed with income data from the 2022 American Community survey, it’s clear that poorer census tracts in and around Detroit are affected by the large concentration of significant air pollution sources that keep violating their permits.

The Michigan Office of the Environmental Justice Public Advocate published an environmental justice screening tool last year to shed light on areas of the state that experience high levels of pollution exposure as well as poorer health and socioeconomic conditions. The data show that environmental justice is an issue for the entire metro Detroit region.

Keep track of air polluters in your neighborhood by exploring the Planet Detroit Michigan Air Permit Violation Dashboard.

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Shelby Jouppi is a freelance data journalist who covers public health. Before recently completing her master’s in data journalism at Columbia University, she was a reporter for WDET 101.9 FM, a news app designer and a podcast producer.