Michigan plans to deny permit for new petcoke pile

 Petroleum coke is commonly  burned as fuel for energy in  cement kilns and power plants

RIVER ROUGE, Mich. (AP) — The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality plans to reject a company’s request to store piles of petroleum coke at an open riverfront site in River Rouge, an agency official said.

A public comment period about Detroit Bulk Storage’s permit application begins Wednesday and runs through June 25, when there will be a public hearing about it. Although the agency won’t officially rule on the application until after the hearing, it told the company Friday that it plans to reject it, department spokesman Brad Wurfel told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Last year, Detroit’s mayor ordered the company to remove massive piles of the black, dusty waste product from a site along the Detroit River near the Ambassador Bridge, after many residents complained that it risked polluting the air and water.

Petroleum coke, or petcoke, commonly is burned as fuel in cement kilns and power plants. The piles in Detroit were from Marathon Oil’s refining exports from oil sands in Alberta, Canada. Freighters had been taking the piles from the Detroit riverfront to Ohio.

Democratic U.S. Rep. Gary Peters of Bloomfield Township said an open drain allowed runoff from the piles to seep into the Great Lakes watershed during storms.

A lab analysis by the state last year showed it to be a high-carbon, low toxicity substance that when stored properly poses little threat to human health or the environment. But complaints surfaced in Detroit and across the Detroit River in Windsor, Ontario, about dust from the piles.

“It does create dust problems. Dust degrades air quality,” Wurfel said. “The decision we’ve come to is based on the operator’s history.”

Teri Whitehead, an attorney for Detroit Bulk Storage, declined to discuss the matter Tuesday.

The petcoke to be stored at the site is owned by Koch Carbon, an affiliate of Koch Industries Inc., which is owned by the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch. They are major donors to conservative political candidates and interest groups.

Americans for Prosperity, which the brothers finance, has launched an effort to torpedo a proposed settlement in the Detroit bankruptcy case. It has been contacting 90,000 conservatives in Michigan and encouraging them to rally against a plan to provide $195 million in state money to help settle Detroit pension holders’ claims in the case, a key element of the deal.

The group has threatened to run ads against members of the Republican-controlled Legislature who vote in favor of the appropriation before the state’s August primary.