How Did The Koch Brothers GET AWAY With POLLUTING DETROIT? [View all]

[Segami]

“The dirtiest residue from the dirtiest oil on earth” now lining the Detroit shoreline…courtesy of the Koch Borothers.
Photo: Fabrizio Costantini@TheNYTimes

In six months time, Detroit, Michigan has gained an ugly, dirty black mountain that is a city block long and three stories high — much to the city’s surprise. Windsor, Ontario is none too happy about it, either, since the mess lines the riverbank and mars the view from their side of the river. The mountain is made up of petcoke, described by researcher Lorne Stockman as “the dirtiest residue from the dirtiest oil on earth.”



Where did the residue come from? That would be Canadian tar sands. Last November, a riverside refinery owned by Marathon Petroleum began refining the oil from Canadian imports of tar sands bitumen. The initial step in the refinery process extracts the oil but leaves behind the waste byproduct known as petroleum coke, or petcoke. Petcoke is like coal, but even dirtier than the low-grade stuff. When burned, it’s too high in carbon emissions to be used in the U.S., so the byproduct is sold and distributed as fuel to other countries that aren’t so particular about air quality, like China and Mexico.



Who buys and distributes it? That would be the notorious Charles and David Koch and their company, Koch Carbon. Dirty energy is a family affair. A third brother, William, is the CEO of the Oxbow Corporation, a company which describes itself as “the largest distributor of petroleum coke in the world.”



So Detroit’s new black mountain is the property of the Koch brothers, who bought it from the refinery. Essentially, they’ve used Detroit as the dumping ground for their store of petcoke until it can be shipped overseas. According to the New York Times, the state representative for the area, Rashida Tlaib, said:

“What is really, really disturbing to me is how some companies treat the city of Detroit as a dumping ground. Nobody knew this was going to happen.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/business/energy-environment/mountain-of-petroleum-coke-from-oil-sands-rises-in-detroit.html?_r=0

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http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/05/19/petkoch-waste-product-creates-black-mountain-on-detroits-riverbank/