Passing gas with Matty

By Joel Thurtell

So this is how it ends.

Matty Moroun — with help from his bought-and-paid-for politician friends — kills the Detroit River International Bridge project and any hope for a safe, efficient, well-cared-for and accountable international bridge at Detroit.

He gets to keep his strangle-hold — aka the Ambasador Bridge — on truck commerce between Canada and the US as the only crossing for trucks.

That wasn’t enough.

Now he’s convinced state authorities that — due to bad weather in Canada — it’s safe to let trucks carrying hazardous materials run across the Ambassador Bridge.

That’s the Ambassador — the only truck link between Canada and the US at Detroit, worth 25 percent of the goods that go between the two countries.

What do we mean by “hazardous materials”?

Oh, just your run-of-the-refinery gasoline.

Maybe you think a blowup of the bridge wouldn’t affect you as long as you’re not on it.

Think again.

If the truck that spills its load is full of poison gas, sayanara to you folks living, working and breathing anyplace downwind of Matty’s mania.

Let’s think what “hazmat” means — and why sane authorities don’t allow it to travel over bridges or through tunnels.

The first class of hazmat contains materials that can cause mass explosions, projection hazards, fire hazards, minor explosions and includes, for example, dynamite, flares, fireworks, ammunition, blasting agents and other explosives, according to the 2005 “Commercial Driver’s License Manual.

Want that stuff driving alongside you on the Ambassador?

Then there are flammable gases, nonflammable gases and poisonous and toxic gases like propane, helium and compressed fluorine.

Flammable liquids include gasoline.

That’s right, gasoline. I meant it when I said Matty’s passing gas on his bridge.

Then there are flammable solids, spontaneously combustible materials and materials that are dangerous when they get wet.

Dangerous when wet — know what’s under the Ambassador?

Right, the Detroit River, flowing at 7 mph towards Lake Erie.

There are materials known as oxidizers and organic peroxides like ammonium nitrate and methyl ethyl ketone  and peroxide.

How about poisons like potassium cyanide and infectious substances like, oh, say, antrax virus.

Hey, you folks in Toledo – how’d you like an anthrax cocktail?

But I’m not done: Uranium is transportable as hazmat across Matty’s bridge.

So is battery fluid as well as the infamous polluter, polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB).

Last but hardly least, Matty can pass fuel oil over his bridge.

Thank you, Matty.

You are such a thoughtful and humane citizen.