When the second bridge opens truck traffic will grow at the rate of 2.5 percent per year, which will result in a 109 percent increase in 30 years from today’s traffic.

DETROIT—Patricia Gonzalez can’t imagine living in Southwest
Detroit’s Delray Neighborhood after the Gordie Howe International Bridge (GHIB)
opens and truck traffic doubles.

“My biggest concern about the second bridge is increased truck
traffic. This area is already too polluted,” said Gonzalez, a longtime Delray
resident. Delray was chosen as the U.S. site for the GHIB. The impoverished
neighborhood is located near the Ambassador Bridge, North America’s busiest
international border crossing. Approximately 10,000 trucks cross over the
Ambassador Bridge everyday.

Then known as the Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC),
GHIB is set to open in 2020 and will connect Detroit and Windsor.

The GHIB will increase truck traffic by 125 percent, according
to Simone Sagovac, program director of the Southwest Detroit Community Benefits
Coalition.

Jeff Cranson, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of
Transportation (MDOT), said the most recent published estimate compiled as part
of the DRIC study is that truck traffic will grow at the rate of 2.5 percent
per year, which will result in a 109 percent increase in 30 years from today’s
traffic.

The GHIB was first proposed in 2004. Since then, supporters of
the project have argued that a second border crossing is needed to prepare for
an anticipated expansion in economic activity.

“I don’t think that having one or two bridges is going to change
the fact that if the economy improves, we are going to have more trucks,”
Sagovac said. “And if we have more trucks and only one bridge, there is going
to be more congestion.”

Environmental activists preparing to reduce
trucking emissions 

The increase in truck traffic has prompted environmental
activists to consider measures that reduce diesel emissions. Sagovac wants
Michigan to implement a model similar to California’s Clean Truck Program,
which has reduced port truck emissions.

“Under conditions of the program, all trucks coming
in the property must have the most current year truck engine,” she said. “The
newer truck engines pollute significantly less. They pollute about 80 percent
less diesel emissions than the previous standard.”

She also wants
to work with local companies to try to get them to install new engines and
filters in trucks.

“There are
filters and engines that are manufactured at companies in the Detroit area and
Dearborn, so there is a larger economic benefit,” she said.

It would be costly for companies to upgrade trucks.

“It is a cost…but it is a much smaller cost then the collective
cost with the health concerns,” Sagovac said. The creation of green spaces
is also being considered as a strategy to address the heavy truck traffic.  

Increased truck traffic renews concerns about
hazardous diesel exhaust emissions

According to the Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision diesel
emissions from mobile sources is the top issue of concern for southwest Detroit
and South Dearborn communities. Diesel exhaust is linked to respiratory
problems and cancer. It is a complex mixture of gases and fine particles
commonly known as soot that contains several toxic air contaminants. The
pollutant can irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs.

In Delray, semi-trucks can be spotted traveling through the
neighborhoods all day. Delray is situated near the highway, which also
contributes to the heavy truck traffic. 
Diesel exhaust from truck traffic is only one source of pollution.
Southwest Detroit is surrounded by refineries and heavy industries, making it
home to some of Michigan’s most polluted ZIP codes.

Delray’s 48209 ZIP code is one of Michigan’s most polluted. A
coal fired plant and the Detroit Water and Sewerage Plant is close to the homes
of Delray residents who can also see Zug Island from only a short distance.

An industrial plant located near the Delray Neighborhood. It is just one of the many sources of pollution that contributes to poor air quality in Delray.

Sagovac explained that diesel exhaust can be just as much a threat
to human health as pollution from industrial sources.

“The smokestacks are disbursing the pollution high
above, away from the community,” she said. “But the truck traffic, the
emissions are emitted at the human level and the diesel particulate that comes
out. There is a whole array of different toxins that come out of diesel emissions
and it stays down on the ground level with people.”

Fate of residents who won’t receive buyouts
questioned

Residents living within the footprint of the project will be offered
buyouts. State Rep. Stephanie Chang (D- Detroit), has been working with
the Southwest Detroit Community Benefits Coalition and a community advisory group
to ensure Delray is still a livable area after the bridge opens.

“We want Delray to be a hopeful, vibrant area for the residents
who will still be living here after the second bridge opens,” she said.

142 residential properties have been identified for acquisition. All residents within the footprint of the bridge project have already received letters informing them about the buyouts.

Chang is also working to make sure residents who were offered
buyouts know what their rights are and have a safe, decent and sanitary place to
live. 

She said all the residents within the footprint of the project
have already received letters informing them about the buyouts. According to the 2010 census, Delray had a population
of 2,783 people.

Cranson said 142 residential properties have been identified for
acquisition. All buildings on acquired properties will be demolished. The
project footprint was identified in the Record of Decision in 2009.

Maria Avila, a lifelong resident of southwest Detroit, believes
all residents in Delray should be given the option of moving out.

“They should have a choice,” she said. “Either move them out or
give them every accommodation they ask for; and that includes installing air
filtration systems in homes.”

The Coalition will be
advocating on behalf of residents through the community benefits agreement
process.

Cranson
added that mitigating impacts to the community is
an important aspect of the project and that Michigan continues to work directly
with the community and its Canadian partners on the GHIB project to identify
appropriate mitigation measures.

Environmental impact of bridge concerns
residents

In southwest Detroit, one in five children have asthma,
according to the Michigan Environmental Council. 

(Left-Right) 15-year-old Haracio Vargis, who has asthma, his sister Karla Adela Vargis and their mother Patricia Gonzalez. They are longtime residents of the Delray Neighborhood. The second international border crossing has left the family’s fate in Delray uncertain. Gonzalez’s eldest daughter passed away of cancer in 2012.

Gonzalez is still grieving the loss of her eldest daughter, who
died of cancer in 2012.

“If you ask a lot of the families from the Delray, you will see
that many have cancer,” Gonzalez said. “If I knew the future, and I would have
known that my daughter would live until 80 years old in Mexico? I would have
never come here.”

In 2014, the Clean Air Task Force examined the deaths and other
adverse health effects and costs attributable to the fine particle air
pollution resulting from power plant emissions in Wayne County. Deaths, 70;
heart attacks, 110; asthma attacks, 1,400; hospital admissions, 47; chronic
bronchitis, 43; and asthma ER visits, 98.

Cranson said the air quality analysis completed for the GHIB,
concluded that the project is predicted below the standards stated in the Clean
Air Act as amended in 1990 (CAAA).

The study included project-level analysis for carbon monoxide
(CO), fine and course particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and mobile source air
toxics (MSAT). Moreover, the DRIC Air Quality Impact Technical Report (January,
2008) concluded that the construction and operations of the bridge and plaza
would not violate the CAAA.

Dr.
Van Brad Van Guilder, organizing representative of the Sierra Club’s Beyond
Coal to Clean Energy Campaign said local air quality monitors don’t test for diesel
exhaust making it difficult to identify how much the pollutant impacts air
quality.

“I
am able to speak,” Gonzalez said. “Many
families cannot speak, so I am doing it for them and my daughter. She showed me
that every moment you live is a moment that is given as a gift.”

MDOT has worked aggressively to support community efforts to
obtain and implement grants to limit diesel emission in Southwest Detroit.

Southwest Detroit’s 48217 ZIP code is Michigan’s most polluted, according to University of Michigan environmental scientists who have studied air pollution data that also shows neighboring ZIP codes account for five of the other top 10 areas. 

“It is such a huge amount of pollution that all the houses and
buildings are starting to be covered with a thick layer of black dust, which is
very difficult to remove,” said Elias Gutierrez, publisher of the Latino Press.

Gonzalez is a mother of four.  Her family’s fate in Delray is still
uncertain.

“What are we going to do?”
Gonzalez asked. “Should I stay here? My family is here. There is a community
here. I don’t know where to ask these questions or who is going to help us.”   

About this
series

New Michigan Media (NMM) is
a collaboration between the five largest minority media in Michigan with a
combined estimated circulation of 120,000 weekly— The Arab American News, The
Latino Press, The Michigan Chronicle, The Michigan Korean Weekly, and the
Detroit Jewish News. NMM is a partner in the Detroit Journalism Cooperative
(DJC).  Funded by the John S. and James L.
Knight Foundation, Renaissance Journalism’s Michigan Reporting Initiative and
the Ford Foundation, the DJC aims to report about and create community
engagement opportunities pertaining to Detroit and its post bankruptcy
recovery. Each article in the series appears in all the NMM member newspapers. This article is from THE LATINO PRESS. The DJC is a unique collaboration between ethnic and mainstream media outlets
in the region, and includes NMM, Bridge Magazine, Detroit Public Television,
Michigan Radio and WDET.