Residents of Beniteau Street in Detroit, Michigan have reported strong chemical odors emitting from the adjacent Stellantis Mack Assembly plant.
Photographer: Matthew Hatcher/BloombergHow a New Jeep Factory In Detroit Turned Into a Civil Rights Fight
The plant — and its 5,000 jobs — was seen as a victory for the city, until residents got sick.
When plans for a new Jeep factory on Detroit’s east side were announced in 2019 — the city’s first assembly plant in nearly 30 years — it was celebrated as an economic boon for the city, bringing 5,000 jobs and an influx of investment to long-neglected neighborhoods. Six years after filing for bankruptcy, the city was “turning a corner” and becoming more business friendly, The Detroit News declared.
To bring all that economic development to the area, the Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy, Michigan’s environmental regulator, agreed to a tradeoff: Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV — now Stellantis NV after a merger — would reduce emissions at another factory seven miles north, in order to increase emissions around the new Mack Avenue Jeep plant. In effect, the company was shifting pollution from a neighborhood with a substantial White population to one that’s 97% Black and sits in a county with some of the highest asthma rates in the country.