By Joel Thurtell
Stamper downplayed more specific concerns about the Ambassador bridge: that a fuel station near the bridge might be a hazard, for instance — saying it doesn’t pose a risk now and is being moved anyway, further away from the replacement span.
— Detroit Free Press, “Ambassador’s popularity highlights security needs,” March 29, 2009.
The Detroit Free Press just saved Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun a heap of money. Why should he bother to move that “fuel station”? The Free Press, has, with a dollop of ink, transferred 300,000 gallons of diesel fuel and gasoline to some unspecified spot “near” Matty’s beloved and highly profitable Ambassador Bridge.
True, the “fuel station” is adjacent to the bridge. But the fuel storage tanks for the station are related to the bridge like the seat of my pants is related to my butt.
Saying those fuel tanks are “near” the bridge is like saying my hat is “near” my head or my shoes are “near” my feet.
When I read a whopper like this from bridge company president Dan Stamper, aided and abetted by the newspaper, I wonder if it came about through simple reporter laziness, some nefarious policy of editorial mendacity tilted in Matty’s favor, or sheer journalistic cowardice.
Whatever the motive, it only brightens the outlook for billionaire trucking and bridge magnate Moroun by trivializing a real, easily verifiable and extremely dangerous security risk at the bridge.
Aerial photo of Ambassador Bridge approach on Detroit side, showing location of fuel tanks and fuel truck. Photo courtesy Gregg Ward.
Those 300,000 gallons of explosive are sitting in tanks DIRECTLY UNDER the Ambassador Bridge.
A Bic lighter or a flicked cigarette could ignite them.
Any reporter writing about the Ambassador Bridge in March 2009 surely knows the exact location of this bomb. It was reported first by National Public Radio last year and later by me in this blog.
The Detroit Free Press has not reported — till now — on the bomb under the bridge. Yet in this article, using Moroun mouthpiece Dan Stamper as their voice, the newspaper sunmarily dismisses the danger, showing contempt both for fact and for readers.
I dug out the column I published in joelontheroad.com on November 11, 2008. Here it is:
“The bomb under the Ambassador.”
By Joel Thurtell
Forbes Magazine once referred to Detroit Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel “Matty” Moroun as “the troll under the bridge.”
There’s no troll under that bridge.
What’s under the Ambassador Bridge is a bomb.
And no, I’m not talking about the unexploded rocket-propelled grenade police divers found last week in the Detroit River not far from the bridge.
It’s unsettling to learn that someone actually got hold of a grenade, a military weapon, let alone dropped it in the river a couple hundred yards from a bridge that carries one-fourth of the goods that pass between the U.S. and Canada.
But believe me, that rocket-propelled grenade is a mere firecracker compared to what Ambassador Bridge owner and international trucking tycoon Manuel (Matty) Moroun has tucked under the U.S. side of his span.
Three hundred thousand gallons of explosives.
Oh, Matty doesn’t call it a bomb.
He calls it a money-maker.
Three hundred thousand gallons of gasoline and diesel fuel, stored under the elevated U.S. approach to the bridge, for sale at pumps outside Matty’s duty-free Ammex store.
An explosion at the bridge could kill lots of people and cut truck movement between two countries.
On the other hand, Matty makes a lot money selling gas.
Check it out at the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality website — it’s Facility ID 00035589 at 3400 W. Lafayette in Detroit. The owner is Matty’s Ammex, Inc. The record shows 17 underground gasoline and diesel fuel tanks ranging in size between 20,000 and 30,000 gallons on the MDEQ “Storage Tank Facilities List.”.
Readers of joelontheroad.com may recall how late in September, I went looking for a city of Detroit boat launch that I’d heard was closed down by Matty, citing security concerns for the bridge.
One of Matty’s shotgun-toting goons tried to detain me as I took pictures of the bridge from publicly-owned Riverside Park. Supposedly, I posed some kind of threat to the bridge.
Talk about threats to the bridge. Can you believe it? Every day, Matty’s serving a Molotov cocktail of 60,000 gallons gas and 240,000 gallons diesel fuel.
A rocket-propelled grenade by itself couldn’t wreck the Ambassador bridge. But a rocket shot at those fuel bunkers would be a different story. The number of grenades needed to render the Ambassador Bridge a useless, smoldering ruin would be approximately one.
But who needs an RPG?
That Ammex store has all the detonators a terrorist would need.
How about a lit cigarette?
Or a BIC lighter?
Munitions by Matty.
All the makings of a big boom, sold at a profit by Matty Moroun.
I wonder — Why does the city of Detroit, why does the county of Wayne, why does the state of Michigan, why does the federal government let Matty Moroun house a bomb under his bridge?
Drop me a line at joelthurtell(at)gmail.com
is dave bing doing anything about the fuel under the bridge situation?
Good question. Time to check again.