Bridge Owner Spends Night in Jail
Wayne County Judge Prentis Edwards sentenced billionaire Ambassador Bridge owner Manuel "Matty" Moroun to jail yesterday for failing to comply with the judge’s order to finish a project that would connect the Ambassador Bridge to nearby expressways. Moroun’s chief deputy, Dan Stamper, was also ordered to jail. After the order, Moroun appealed the judge’s decision to the Michigan Court of Appeals. The Appeals Court denied the request and Mouron spent the night in jail.
Financial Crisis in Highland Park School District
Governor Snyder announced yesterday that a financial crisis exists in the Highland Park School District. The announcement came less than two weeks after a state review panel recommended the governor appoint an emergency manager to fix the school district’s "financial emergency." The review team had been pouring over the district’s books since November. Emergency managers are already running the Detroit public schools, as well as the cities of Flint, Pontiac, Ecorse and Benton Harbor. Financial review teams are also looking at Detroitand Inkster's books.
Dow Chemical
The Dow Chemical Company is the second-largest producer of toxic chemical waste in the nation, according to a new report by the Environmental Protection Agency. Rebecca Williams reports:
The report shows that Dow produced more than 600 million pounds of toxic chemical waste in the reporting year 2010. Ben Morlock, a spokesperson for Dow, says 97 percent of that toxic chemical waste was treated, recycled or reused. He says the rest of that waste – the remaining three percent – was disposed of in accordance with the company’s state and federal permits. The report says close to 4 billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released into the environment nationwide. This is a 16 percent increase from 2009. Dow, the EPA and the state of Michigan have wrestled over the cleanup of that dioxin pollution for more than 30 years.
