Protesters seeking to focus attention on the storage of petroleum coke mounds near the Detroit River camped out near a storage site Sunday night and plan to announce demands Monday.
The activists want to prevent the mound’s black material from affecting the river and nearby residents.
Stephen Boyle, one of the protesters, said the demands will include a request that city and state officials require the companies storing the “pet coke” obtain the proper permits, which would subject them to environmental regulations. The demands will be announced at a 10 a.m. press conference at the site.
“They have committed an environmental poisoning,” Boyle told Joe Guillen of the Free Press. “Their product was not covered.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says that pet coke is not carcinogenic.
The petroleum coke is a by-product of tar sands oil refining that can be used as a cheap fuel source when blended with coal. Mounds of it are piled northeast of the Ambassador Bridge on property owned by the family of billionaire Manuel (Matty) Moroun and leased to Norfolk Southern railroad. Pet coke storage recently ceased at a second site, on Detroit/Wayne County Port Authority property, southwest of the Ambassador Bridge, along the river.
Boyle was one of about 70 people who marched today through a southwest Detroit neighborhood to the storage site. A contingent of the protesters will stay there overnight until Monday’s press conference.
