Michigan DEQ Completes Initial Screening of Lead Smelter

The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality has completed an initial screening of suspected lead smelter sites located in Detroit.

The screening study was commissioned to determine if there are any impacts from lead emissions from these smelter operations.

The DEQ screening study evaluated 17 suspected lead smelter sites that were identified in a Detroit Free Press series on lead poisoning. Of the 17 suspected sites, seven were either already being evaluated or remediated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency or the DEQ, or as a result of changes to the landscape over time (such as freeway construction and other development), no longer existed. After removing these 7 sites from the list, the remaining 10 sites listed below were evaluated in the study: Michigan Smelting, Federated Metals Division, Great Lakes Smelting, Detroit Lead Pipe Works, Acme Metal Company, Wolverine White Metal – 3421 Gibson, Industrial Smelting, City Metals Refining, Continental Metal Company, and Aetna Smelting.

Sampling was conducted in the neighborhoods surrounding each of the 10 sites. Although the data is limited in nature, lead levels in excess of the DEQ’s residential lead criterion of 400 parts per million were detected in some samples.