Environmental advocates are calling on the Michigan legislature to pass a pair of bills to address the complex realities of air pollution.
In July, the Protecting Overburdened Communities Act was introduced in both chambers of the legislature.
It would require state regulators to consider the combined health effects of all pollutants rather than measure them separately when reviewing new projects.
Chris Gilmer-Hill, policy associate for the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition, said when communities are subject to multiple sources of pollution, it makes sense to measure the cumulative effects.
"We don't get to pick and choose what sources of pollution we're going to breathe into our bodies each day," Gilmer-Hill pointed out. "I don't get to decide that Tuesday is going to be a sulfur dioxide day. I don't get to pick that I'm only going to breathe concrete dust every other Wednesday. We know that our communities are dealing with all of these things at the same time."
He stressed while federal air quality regulations may be relaxed, state governments can and must act to protect citizens.
The bill would allow regulators to deny projects or impose added conditions prior to approval.
Heavy industry in Detroit includes coal power plants, steel and coke facilities, oil refineries and cement manufacturing.
Air quality is impacted by toxic diesel emissions from heavy equipment and trucks used in the industries.
It is estimated 10,000 trucks cross the Ambassador bridge daily.
Raquel Garcia, executive director of the group Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, said residents in the metro are suffering from asthma rates 46% higher than the rest of the state.
"You smell the diesel, you taste the diesel, it stays in your house," Garcia observed. "It's headaches. Some people think, ‘Why do I have memory loss?’ Because you've got diesel emissions poisoning, and you don't connect it to the trucks."
Estimates on the number of missed workdays in Detroit due to asthma are in the hundreds of thousands.
The overall health costs from air pollution in the city are calculated at more than $7 billion annually.
