Petcoke

I saw this online recently;
youtu.be...

While vice does have a leftist-bent to it (as all news sources tend to pander to their target audiences), I find it to be somewhat more grounded than many other news sources.

In any case Petcoke is short for "Petroleum Coke", and is a byproduct of oil refineries. Now while a byproduct it has a lot of industrial uses, and thus is sometimes stored and sold. It's important to point out that petroleum coke is a very fine powder.

Now in Chicago, there has been a stockpiling of this stuff, most of it coming from the canadian oil fields by barge. However they're have been complaints from nearby residents. The way that this petcoke has been stored has been basically a big open-air pile of the stuff. with little in the way of even token containment.

That causes a lot of problems for people nearby, as petcoke is blown into their neighborhoods, coating clothes, walls, and getting into people's lungs.

This is a major health issue.

People don't know what this stuff is unless its in their backyards.
Metro Detroit is plagued with it as well, and the health concerns are real.
The dust gets everywhere.
metrotimes.com...

It was definitely a problem by the time May rolled around, when the weather had warmed and she was leaving the windows open. But they didn’t stay open for long.

“The dust was getting everywhere,” she recalls. “On the floors, the windowsills, everywhere.”

In the building’s parking garage, it was so thick, footprints would be left behind when people walked across it, she says. And it wasn’t just the amount that caused concern. It was the way it felt: gritty and greasy.

more:
metrotimes.com...

blogs.metrotimes.com...

Residents, local organizations and elected officials took issue with the possible impact of the coal-black material, a byproduct created when tar-like bitumen from the Alberta, Canada, oil sands is turned into gasoline. On a windy day, southwest Detroit neighborhoods were showered by the material, which was produced at the nearby Marathon Oil Refinery. Eventually, after a bevy of officials and activists called for protective action, Detroit Bulk Storage, the proprietor of the land where the petcoke mountains sat, agreed to halt storage.

And the companies want to put the stuff back on the riverfront:
blogs.windsorstar.com...

The company which garnered international attention by storing petroleum coke along the Detroit River has applied to again put massive black mounds at the same location.

Detroit Bulk Storage has filed an appeal against the City of Detroit’s ruling last summer which rejected the company’s permit application to store petcoke on a riverfront industrial site at 1155 Rosa Parks Blvd. just east of the Ambassador Bridge.

So, alll they do is set up shop again downriver:
www.freep.com...

The controversy over large petroleum coke piles stored along the Detroit River, and the uproar over the ubiquitous black dust that they spread throughout the southwest Detroit neighborhood where they were located, could be moving a few miles downriver.

And the issue is causing a dust-up among the potential new neighbors already.

Detroit Bulk Storage is seeking approval from the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality to openly store piles of pet coke and other materials on a 15-acre riverfront site at 530 W. Great Lakes St. in River Rouge, near the border with Ecorse

Pretty sure the site in Detroit is owned by the Koch brothers. Just shows how the rich don't really play by the same rules as everybody else.

Was a story on NPR about it. Apparently leaking or leaching into the river not too mention they say it is an eyesore. And for something in Detroit to be called an eyesore....