"Metro Detroit’s poor and minority populations face greater health and environmental challenges than most communities because of their proximity to industrial pollution - an “environmental injustice” and “human rights abuse,” Sierra Club Detroit officials said today as they released a report on the state of Detroit’s environment."

"'We have in the City of Detroit, in the area of 48217 (ZIP Code), River Rouge and Ecorse, the most polluted areas in the state of Michigan and definitely in the Midwestern states,' said Rhonda Anderson, environmental justice organizer for the group.

She cited the pollution from a wide range of nearby industries: auto plants, steel mills, an oil refinery, a wastewater treatment plant and more."

Keith Matheny reports for the Detroit Free Press April 4, 2013. [2]