Faking it in Delray

By Joel Thurtell

So what’s with Michigan Democrats?

The two Democrats on the Michigan Senate’s Economic Development Committee abstained on October 20, 2001 from voting a bill to build a new Detroit River bridge onto the floor of the Senate. They claim they wanted to attach a measure to improve the environment in the Delray community surrounding the proposed new bridge.

By holding back their votes, the Democrats ensured that the procedural vote would fail. The bridge bill remains stuck in a committee whose chairman is controlled by Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Moroun.

For those tuning in late, good ol’ Matty owns the only truck link between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario. He has a monopoly and wants to keep it.

The proposed new government-sponsored bridge, being pushed hard by Republican Gov. Rick Snyder, is a direct threat to Matty’s business empire, and he’s spending millions on advertising and bribes to legislators in hopes he can quash a public bridge.

Democrats just gave Matty a big lift.

According to the Wall Street Journal, State Sen. Virgil Smith justified his abstention with this line of (pardon the expression) reasoning: “With the community protection agreement not being added to the bill,
I could not support it.”

I am really glad that Sen. Smith is sensitive to protecting the community surrounding the proposed bridge site at the confluence of the Detroit and Rouge rivers.

But I wonder why he is all of a sudden so sensitive to the concerns of people in this community?

Delray is an utter mess and has been for generations.

Is Sen. Smith blind?

Has he no olfactory nerves to detect the stench of iron being made and sewage being “treated”?

Private companies and public officials not only have known this, but they have aided and abetted the demise of this once thriving community.

There is a reason why Delray is a dumping ground.

It is called location, location, location.

It is a great place to put the kind of operations that cause massive pollution of air and water.

Ships have been plying the Lower Rouge River since colonial times. Fort Dearborn could be situated several miles inland in a city of that name because the Rouge River provided access to the Great Lakes for shipping.

Iron has been produced on Zug Island at the Rouge and Detroit rivers for more than a century.

Henry Ford liked the proximity of southeastern Dearborn, both for shipping and with the Rouge as an outlet for wastewater from his giant auto plant, which also sucks water from the Lower Rouge River.

A second mill is still turning out rolls of steel at the Rouge plant, where booms floating on the river are supposed to impede the flow of pollutants into the stream.

In 1940, Detroit built what would become the largest single-unit wastewater treatment plant in the world on the Lower Rouge River. Whenever there is a hard rain, the city’s wastewater system spews industrial and toilet waste into the Rouge.

As the sewage plant expanded, its stink, combined with the stench from the two steel mills, the Rouge plant and other manufacturing plants in Delray, came to dominate the area.

Mayor Coleman Young saw fit to expand the sewage plant by placing lagoons across the streets — notice the plural — from St. John Cantius church. Sewage lagoons and church services didn’t mix. St. John Cantius is now shuttered.

I challenge the Democrats to take a drive through Delray. Of the buildings that remain, many are boarded up. Many more are charred.

The Hungarian Club, once the cultural heartbeat of Delray, is boarded up.

Coleman Young knew what he was doing to that community. So did Henry Ford and every industrialist who built the bridges, factories and infrastructure that have permanently degraded this place.

For politicians to suddenly waken to the plight of Delray is thoroughly dishonest and complete hypocrisy.

Where were the Democrats when Delray was being polluted physically and dismantled culturally?

Oh, that’s right — Coleman Young was a Democrat.

Why not vote “yes” on moving the bill out of committee and then, if you’re so moved to fix it, fight hard to protect Delray on the floor of the Senate?

Killing the bill in committee smacks of ignorance, stupidity or — I know it is not nice of me to suggest this:

Could the Dems be serving Matty, too?

The abstention gambit smacks of trickery. The Democrats what us to believe they are for the new bridge because, I mean, geez, the governor, the Big Three carmakers, teh Chamber of Commerce and practically everyone with his or head screwed on right who’s not bought out by Matty is for the bridge.

If you’re against the bridge, have the guts to vote “no,” as Matty’s Republican gofers did.

By abstaining, you send the message that you favor the bridge, but you want this or that i dotted or t crossed.

That is bullshit. In fact, whether you abstain or vote “no,” you have helped to kill the bridge.

And by killing the bridge, you have done Matty’s work.

If you’re not Matty’s goon, don’t behave like one.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com