By Joel Thurtell
SeverStal steel mill operation, seen from boat in freighter docking bay on Rouge River Friday, September 19, 2008. Piles of uncovered material, coke?, lie open to wind. Goggles anyone? Joel Thurtell photo.
He had on a blue uniform and was driving a pickup truck, honking his horn like crazy. He strode down to the edge of the dock at the SeverStal steel mill in Dearborn and yelled, “This is a Marine Security Area! You need to leave now! I’m going to take your boat number and report you to the Coast Guard!”
The bluster came from a private security guard at the Russian-owned steel mill as my friend John W. Smith and I patrolled at trolling speed, me snapping occasional photos, up the docking bay once run by an American automaker called Ford Motor Company.
Guess the Russkies don’t like spies.
We were in my little fishing boat, coincidentally and appropriately named “Slick.”
We were touring the Rouge. Never expected to be hassled by Russkies. I’m going to complain to the big boss over there, Vladimir Putin himself.
But now I gotta ask ya, Vladimir, and I’m looking straight into your soul: Where are the signs that
say “Marine Security Area”?
SeverStal steel mill operation, seen from boat in freighter docking bay on Rouge River Friday, September 19, 2008. Piles of uncovered coke and iron ore lie open to the wind. Joel Thurtell photo.
Why, there isn’t even a “no trespassing” placard anywhere around your docks or, for that matter, anywhere along the Rouge.
Wonder why that is, Mr. Putin?
Because it’s a PUBLIC WATERWAY, you vodka-slopping clodpate!
Really, I’ve had it with these self-important factotums who hassle the few people curious enough and gutsy enough to play tourist on the Rouge River.
We’re trying to make people more aware of the Rouge so they’ll care about it. We’re urging people to go to the river, paddle and boat on the river. Why, there are plans to take people on boat tours of the Rouge.
And some of these private companies want to hassle us Rouge tourists?
I’m serious about encouraging people to get to know the Rouge. Three years ago, photographer Pat Beck and I canoed up the Rouge River for a Detroit Free Press project. (Oh, by the way, our book about this adventure, photos by Pat and text by yours truly, UP THE ROUGE! PADDLING DETROIT’S HIDDEN RIVER, will be published in March by Wayne State University Press). On that trip, we stopped alongside a wharf at the U.S. Gypsum Company plant. We were fighting 30 mph gusts in a canoe, trying to avoid being run down by a barge, when four hardhats from USG came up to us where we bobbed on the chop.
U.S. Gypsum plant on Rouge River, taken from boat on water September 19, 2008. Joel Thurtell photo.
Were they concerned about our safety in a fragile canoe facing high winds?
Not at all. Muttering something about “nine eleven,” they demanded to see our ID. So as I sat in the stern of the canoe, I had to dig out of my pocket the baggie that held a photostat of my driver’s license and my Free Press ID.
What did they think? Al Qaeda’s gonna blast their sand piles from a dinky canoe?
Once they learned who we were and what we were doing, they were nice enough. But what if we’d been Joe Citizen without a newspaper ID card?
I can understand the SeverStal guard’s concern: This time I had really potent weaponry. No more canoes. I was piloting a 16-foot fishing boat powered by a 60 hp outboard motor. Maybe he mistook it for a PT boat.
Next time I’ll sweep in with bazooka-totin water-skiers.
“Marine Security Area,” indeed. I’ll tell you how secure this marine area is. The only fish that are “secure” there are carp. Contaminated carp. Fish advisories galore on the Rouge. Don’t eat ’em!
Phragmites, an invasive plant species, tower over concrete pavement that underlies four miles of Rouge River between SeverStal steel mill and Michigan Avenue. Concrete was installed in 1972 by U.S> Army Corps of Engineers to control flooding, but it ensures that fish and other wildllife will have a tough time living with that hard river bottom. Joel Thurtell photo.
Why, the water is so polluted in the Lower Rouge you’d never dare swim there. The deep dark scandal of the Rouge is all the toxic sludge on its bottom that nobody wants to talk about. And then, there’s that concrete channel — yes, four miles of the Rouge that were paved, literally, for flood control. If you wanted to design the nemesis for wildlife habitat, it would be that concrete sluice.
Can’t blame Vladimir for that. We’ve done a pretty good, red-blooded American job of ruining this waterway.
Ride in a boat on the Rouge near SeverStal, or for that matter near the Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant or the U.S. Steel iron-making plant on Zug Island. Better hold your nose.
A few years ago, I was writing about air pollution at U.S. Steel. By the smell on Friday, September 19, as John and I idled the Slick past this plant, nothing has changed. Hydrogen sulfide, by the stench of it. I flew over these blast furnaces three times — twice in a helicopter and once in a blimp. Always the same wretched stink, even at 1,200 feet.
Conveyor moves ore or limestone from uncovered piles on south side of Rouge River to north side where it enters SeverStal iron-making plant. Boaters traveling underneath conveyor should have goggles, as grit falls off conveyor into river and into human eyes. Joel Thurtell photo.
We drove the boat under a conveyor that spans the Rouge at SeverStal and rubbed the grit out of our eyes. Yep, the conveyor trasnports some kind of grimy crap over the river and, of course, no machine being perfect, some of the grime drops into the River or sticks in your eyes on its way down.
Huge uncovered heaps of coke and other materials I can’t identify. Ore? Limestone? Whatever it is, the dust rises and gets whipped by the wind. When Pat and I paddled the canoe past here in 2005, with high winds, we had grit in our eyes for miles.
Pile of uncovered salt alongside Rouge River at Morton Salt facility on Rouge River. Joel Thurtell photo.
Think about it: Uncovered piles of salt at Morton Salt, cement at LaFarge Cement, heaps of gypsum at U.S. Gypsum, coke, slag and other materials at the two iron-makers. Not to mention the stench from the Detroit wastewater plant and more from puke-inducing fumes from a city contractor’s composting operation.
We saw what looks like an inflatable oil containment boom at the west end of the Turning Basin at the Severstal plant. Wonder what that means?
I noticed there are still twin booms at the city of Detroit’s O’Brien Drain, the infamous creek where huge amounts of oil emerged into the Rouge in 2002. It’s still happening, I guess, given the presence of the booms, which are inflatable tubes that supposedly stop the lighter-than-water oil from entering the Rouge, but don’t. Last year, just before I retired from the Free Press, I wrote about a spill of several hundred gallons of oil from this drain just east of the I-75 bridge.
Oil containment boom at O'Brien Drain east of I-75 bridge on Rouge River in Detroit. Six years ago, huge amounts of oil spilled from the Detroit sewerage system into this drain and on into the Rouge. Even now, oil flows occasionally into the Rouge through this drain, hence the containment boom. Joel Thurtell photo.
So the guard wants to report us to the Coast Guard. “Fine,” I said. “Go ahead.” I put the Slick in reverse and backed away. Hard for a renta-cop to arrest you if you’re in a boat and he’s in a pickup truck. At trolling speed, I drove the Slick back towards the Turning Basin where ocean-going ships reverse course. Suddenly, John noticed the red flash of molten iron being poured. I turned the Slick around for a better photo.
Honk! Honk! Honk! Vladimir’s lackey was really pissed now. I’d disobeyed him.
He’s going to report me? For what? Driving my boat on public waters?
You know, I decided, by gum, I’m gonna report him
I’m going over his vacant head.
Take this message to your leader, you Commie-lovin stooge.
Tell him, you running dog of Red iron-makers, that joelontheroad knows something about marine security.
Never mind, I’ll tell him myself, since his old KGB pals probably tapped my computer.
Hey, Vladimir — Clean up your friggin steel mill, good buddy.
Cause I’m comin back.
Yep, comin back in my little 16-foot PT boat.
Comin back to your little marine insecurity area.
No bazookas, Vlad. Just my little Canon.
Vlad baby, I’m gonna keep spyin on you Russkies.
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
