FOR
IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, April 30, 2008
CONTACTS: Rhonda Anderson, 313-965-0052
Oliver Bernstein, 512-477-2152
Sierra Club Joins
Community Members to Testify against Marathon
Oil Refinery Expansion;
Impacted Communities Demand a Clean
Energy Future for Detroit
Detroit — Community members suffering from
asthma, mercury poisoning and cancer will voice their opposition to Marathon
Oil’s plans to expand its Detroit refinery
at a public hearing this evening at the Kemeny
Center in Detroit. The Sierra Club Environmental
Justice Program in Detroit
is supporting the community members in their quest for clean energy solutions
and their opposition to dirty, outdated technology.
“Instead of making another short-sighted investment in yesterday’s
dirty, polluting industries, Michigan should be investing in tomorrow’s
clean energy economy, bringing green jobs to Detroit and clean air and water to
our communities,” said Rhonda Anderson, Sierra Club’s Environmental
Justice Regional Representative. “Extracting the tar sands harms Native
communities in Alberta, and refining the oil
harms disadvantaged communities in Detroit.”
Marathon is the only oil refinery in the state of Michigan, and its low-income neighbors
suffer from the toxic pollution spewing from the facility and nearby toxic
incinerators, coal-fired power plants and assembly plants. Expanding in order
to process dirty tar sands from Alberta
– which are major contributors to global warming – would impose
further suffering on Detroit’s
most vulnerable residents.
“Expanding Marathon Oil’s dirty refinery would be another step in
the wrong direction for a state that could instead be investing in green jobs
and a clean energy economy,” said Dolores Leonard, a Sierra Club member
and resident of the Fort-Schaefer area of the city. “Detroiters deserve
to be treated better than this, and they deserve the nearly 35,000 green jobs
that Michigan
could see under a clean energy economy.”
According to the Blue Green Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental
activists led by the United Steelworkers and the Sierra Club, a serious
commitment to renewable energy would create 34,777 jobs at 2,050 existing firms
in Michigan.
Governor Jennifer Granholm has said she is trying to make Michigan a leader in developing a clean
energy economy, but supporting Marathon Oil’s expansion would be a huge
step backwards.
This evening’s schedule includes an informational session from 5:30 p.m.
until 6:30 p.m. followed by a public hearing at 7:00 p.m. Both events will take
place at the Kemeny
Center, 2260 South Fort Street.
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