As activists led by young people stormed the stage at the Global Climate Summit in Madrid this week demanding urgent action, Detroiters gathered to voice our concerns over our own regional expression of our changing world. Called together by several environmental justice organizations, and with the support of some elected legislators, over 200 people met at the Cass Commons to strategize about the most recent spill of toxins into the Detroit River. 

On November 26 a dock collapsed under the weight of crushed limestone, recently unloaded at the Detroit Bulk Storage site.  The site has long been known to hold toxic sediments. Its history as a uranium processing center during the Manhattan Project and through the early days of the Cold War raised immediate concerns that the spill had exposed the metro area to nuclear waste contamination.

By the time of the Town Meeting, the state Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) was assuring residents that there was no danger of radiation nor to public health. Leisl Clark, the director of EGLE said:

As part of our initial investigation, we took radiological measurements of the soil at the site, and results from 1,000 data points showed readings below naturally occurring background levels. That matched results from river sediment tests we took in the spring adjacent to the Detroit Bulk Storage site that found radiation at or below background levels.

Knowing that conventional industrial pollutants were in the river’s sediments and potentially on the site, we also took water samples upstream, in front of the collapsed shoreline, and downstream. Test results from the samples show no detectable amounts of all but two substances. Both of those were well below water quality standards and did not appear to be specifically associated with the collapse.

Based on this data we found no current adverse impact on water quality due to the spill.

Unsurprisingly, these reassurances were greeted with skepticism. The legacy of Flint and the lying of government officials will not be easily changed. Nor should it be.

This incident did little to create confidence.  For days water flowed down river passed the spill, but the public was unaware of any possible problem. At first it seemed it was because no one was aware of the collapse. But as time went on, we learned that collapse was first reported the day after the limestone was unloaded. The Army Corps of Engineers knew of the spill, but felt it was “not their problem.” State officials learned of it through the reporting of the Windsor Star. 

Such bureaucratic, limited thinking by major government agencies will kill us. The idea that we can go along as we always have is collapsing with the shore lines. Everyone knows full well that the banks of most of the rivers in the world scarred by industrial development are contaminated. Water flows over toxic soil. To pretend we can “contain” this without major clean-up efforts is fantasy.

Global climate change is raising the levels of the Great Lakes. As we move into winter, ice is forming. With spring, breaking ice flows will scrape into poisons buried for decades.

We need to rethink our priorities and our practices. Old paradigms are crumbling as quickly as the shoreline. We need to heed the voices emerging around us proclaiming, “We are unstoppable, Another world is possible.” It is up to us to bring it into being.