Detroit Bulk Storage renews fight to Store Pet Coke on Riverfont

[Willi]

Of course they ARE going to burn it
--- why do you think they are piling it up ????

C'mon people

In 2011, U.S. refineries produced 61.5 million tons of petcoke, enough to fire 50 coal plants for a year.

The report says that Canadian exports of petcoke to the U.S. more than doubled between 2010 and 2012, and BP Whiting’s expansion will triple its petcoke production to 6,000 tons per day.

Detroit’s Marathon refinery wasn’t producing petcoke before its expansion, according to the report, but now produces 1,720 tons per day while the Phillips 66 refinery in Wood River, Illinois, is increasing its petcoke output from 1,300 to 5,700 tons per day.

[JBMcB]

It's not logical to think inhaling what is basically coal dust in bad for your health?

If all you needed was logic, what do we need all this "science" stuff for?

From the study itself:

Petroleum coke has no observed carcinogenic, reproductive, or developmental effects. Inhalation exposure to high concentrations of petroleum coke dust can lead to an inflammatory response in the lungs of both humans and animals. As noted above, animal toxicity studies of repeated-dose and chronic inhalation have shown respiratory inflammation attributed to the non-specific effects of dust particles rather than the specific effects of petroleum coke.

In other words, breathing in petcoke is no more dangerous than breathing in any other kind of dust. Since the site on the river is zoned and licensed as a storage site - and as far as I can tell has been for decades, complaining that the company is storing stuff there is silly.

Look at the area - there's a forging company, a bunch of warehouses, shipping companies, a rail yard, and the customs plaza with big rigs sitting and idling nearby. Would you drop a loft building right in the middle of that? If you want clean air in that part of town, zone the whole thing residential, close down the bridge and force all the existing companies out. Hope you have good lawyers.