Detroit, MI

EPA wrongly found Detroit area safe for smog, judge rules in split decision

Published

3 months ago

December 14, 2025

EPA wrongly found Detroit area safe for smog, judge rules in split decision

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency was wrong to determine Michigan met federal health and environmental standards for ozone pollution or smog in the Detroit area in 2023, a federal appeals court judge has ruled.

U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Helene White on Dec. 5 issued a split decision in a case about how environmental regulators measured Detroit air quality in 2022, when wildfire smoke drifted over Detroit and affected the air quality monitor readings for a few days in June.

Michigan considered those days “exceptional events” because of the wildfire smoke and didn’t include the high ozone pollution readings in its calculation to the EPA.

With those days tossed, the state was able to argue in 2023 that Michigan met federal air quality standards for ground-level ozone pollution. The seven-county Metro Detroit region had previously been out of compliance with the ozone standards.

The Sierra Club sued, arguing the wildfire smoke did not meaningfully change ozone readings and that the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy failed to analyze how local pollution sources contributed to the ozone levels on those days. The environmental advocacy group also challenged the EPA’s finding that the region met federal standards for ozone pollution.

White determined the exceptional events designation was appropriate, siding against the Sierra Club in deciding the EPA and EGLE correctly analyzed the smoke’s impact on ozone readings in June 2022.

She sided against EPA in deciding the EPA was wrong to put Michigan back into attainment for ground-level ozone without Michigan adopting control measures that would cut volatile organic compounds, which contribute to ozone pollution.

EPA determined the Detroit area was out of attainment for ground-level ozone on April 13, 2022. Michigan regulators did not impose control technologies for ozone-causing pollutants by the deadline in early 2023. Instead, they asked EPA to redesignate the area as in attainment with the air quality rules.

Michigan was obligated to implement control technologies even though it had submitted a redesignation request, White said in her order. Control technologies include efforts to reduce volatile organic compounds from being released from manufacturing plants and industrial sources, according to EPA documents.

Sierra Club member and Detroit environmental justice activist Dolores Leonard cheered the outcome of the case.

“Without this victory, EPA’s decisions would have let Michigan avoid the rules needed to reduce pollution and keep the air we breathe safe,” Leonard said. “At a time when asthma rates are rising in Detroit, especially in Black communities, that’s unacceptable. With the backing of this federal court decision, our community will continue to push the state of Michigan to take much-needed action to relieve ozone pollution in this area.”

The Clean Air Act requires those pollution control measures to be implemented even after the EPA puts an area back into attainment to ensure the air quality remains healthy, said Nick Leonard, executive director of Great Lakes Environmental Law Center, which argued the Sierra Club’s case.

White’s order means the EGLE will have to reapply for the attainment of the ozone standard, Leonard said.

“At the very least, I would say they have to correct the legal deficiency, which was that they didn’t enact the pollution control rules that are typically required for areas that are in non-attainment for this long,” he said.

The EPA is reviewing the decision, its press office said. The office did not respond to a question about whether it would ask Michigan to adopt volatile organic compound control measures as a result of White’s decision.

The EGLE also is reviewing the ruling, spokesman Dale George said.

“While EGLE was not a party to the case and is not able to speak in detail about the legal outcome, we were encouraged that the court supported the use of exceptional events demonstrations and acknowledged the sound science behind EGLE’s determination that the Detroit area met the health-based ozone standard,” George said.

Leonard said he was disappointed but not surprised that White ruled against the Sierra Club’s arguments that EGLE and the EPA did not correctly account for wildfire smoke’s impact on ozone readings in 2022.

That issue is going to plague communities as climate change causes northern wildfires to become more common and kick smoke into Michigan, he predicted.

“If we start to essentially cut out bad air quality days because of the claim they were partially influenced by wildfire smoke … , you create this disconnect between the regulatory systems that are meant to protect people and the actual air pollution that people are breathing,” Leonard said.

ckthompson@detroitnews.com

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Detroit, MI

Metro Detroit Weather Forecast, March 21, 2026 — 8:45 AM Update

Published

2 hours ago

March 21, 2026

Press Room

NEWS

Published: March 21, 2026 at 9:17 AM

After an unseasonably warm day across Metro Detroit to end the week on Friday, while we are cooler to start the weekend, 4Warn Meteorologist Bryan Schuerman is tracking more rain and even a few thunderstorms moving in by the end of the weekend.

The 4Warn Weather team tracks the latest weather alerts in Metro Detroit and Southeast Michigan. Get the most updated information here: https://www.clickondetroit.com/weather/

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Detroit, MI

Farmington, Farmington Hills push for revitalization of Grand River

Published

14 hours ago

March 20, 2026

Press Room

Farmington, Farmington Hills push for revitalization of Grand River

Farmington — Farmington and Farmington Hills officials are pushing to continue to revitalize a key commercial corridor through both cities, with one city leader saying residents eventually won’t recognize it because it will have evolved so much.

Both cities are using a mix of tools to develop Grand River Avenue, which runs from downtown Detroit all the way to Grand Rapids. It’s the main commercial thoroughfare in downtown Farmington and also runs through Farmington Hills. City officials want to bring in more commercial development, but also make it more pedestrian-friendly.

A 2025 market study through Gibbs Planning Group showed Farmington Hills’ side of the corridor has $1.2 billion in restaurant and retail spending over the course of a year.

But the study, which Farmington Hills Mayor Theresa Rich touched on during her State of the City address earlier this month, also indicated there’s demand for 20 new restaurants or retail businesses, and 400-500 new housing units in the corridor.

“We have the density, we have the consumer demand, and we have the traffic that can sustain the kind of investments that belong,” said Farmington Hills’ Economic Development Director Cristia Brockway.

Both cities are already making a concerted effort to revitalize Grand River Avenue east of downtown Farmington through the Grand River Corridor Improvement Authority, which was created more than a decade ago. It has focused on public projects and incentives to bring businesses, housing and landscaping to the area.

Farmington Hills’ improvement district along the corridor runs between Orchard Lake and Eight Mile roads; Farmington’s is between Mayfield and Hawthorne Streets. They’re the boundaries of the cities’ tax increment finance districts, which put money from property tax increases toward public projects.

For businesses and developers, Brockway said the city has a Housing and Urban Development grant of up to $30,000 and a Brownfield improvement grant of up to $200,000 that can assist projects. Brockway said these dollars can be used in demolition or for property owners “looking for help with their obsolete building.”

As far as public improvements go, Brockway said the city plans to bring beautification and pedestrian improvement projects valued around $250,000 to Farmington Hills City Council over the next five to eight years. Money generated from the district will pay for the projects, she said.

The city is also looking to incentivize murals in the district.

“It is going to be a continuous effort to always make this area a focus, and to make sure that when we’re adding art, we’re adding spaces, that we’re also maintaining them so things don’t look the same constantly and things don’t lose focus as far as updates,” said Brockway.

At her State of the City address, Rich said residents eventually won’t recognize Grand River.

“By the 2030s, you’re not going to recognize what the Grand River Corridor was. It will be transformed into a beautiful, vibrant, more walkable district,” she said.

On Farmington’s side, meanwhile, the city plans to collect more than $1 million from the district to put back into improvement projects. While most of the money would be spent on land acquisition, it would also be spent on a transportation study, streetscaping, a park assessment plan and gateway enhancements, said Assistant City Manager Chris Weber.

The city is especially focusing on the Farmington Junction building at 31505 Grand River for revitalization efforts.

“We are trying to spur redevelopment in the area. Obviously it’s all built up, but a lot of those areas are older commercial areas that need a refresh or need a development, a scrape and rebuild,” Weber said.

While Farmington didn’t conduct a market study for the district, Weber said “a lot of” Farmington Hills’ data would likely apply to Farmington’s district because they border each other.

Weber said the goal of the revitalization efforts is to create a “similar aesthetic” as motorists and pedestrians travel the corridor.

“We didn’t want one side of the road to look one way and another side of the road to look an entirely different way,” said Weber.

mbryan@detroitnews.com

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Detroit, MI

Lions save nearly $1.3 million with Malcolm Rodriguez contract trick

Published

1 day ago

March 20, 2026

Press Room

Lions save nearly .3 million with Malcolm Rodriguez contract trick

Earlier this week, contract details on the Detroit Lions’ re-signing of Malcolm Rodriguez came out, and if you were to just look at the Over The Cap outline of the deal, it would probably be pretty confusing.

Rodriguez has a salary of over $2.5 million—all guaranteed—a signing bonus of $137,500, and a workout bonus of $50,000. Combine all of those, and it should equal a salary cap hit of a combined $2.7 million. Yet, per OTC, the Lions’ cap charge for Rodriguez’s deal is just $1,402,5000.

There are no void years. This isn’t a misprint. The Lions are just using a salary cap stipulation that rewards teams for developing players and staying loyal to them.

How to qualify for the Four-Year Player Qualifying Contract

The relevant Collective Bargaining Agreement rule is called the “Four-Year Player Qualifying Contract.” You can read the entire terms of this rule, but here’s the short of it. In order to qualify for this advantage, a player has to have:

Four or more Credited Seasons whose contract with a Club has expired after four or more years of continuous, uninterrupted service with that Club

In Rodriguez’s case, he played through the entirety of his four-year rookie contract, so both he and the team are certainly eligible for this benefit.

What is the actual benefit?

Essentially, a team can award a one-year contract to these players that acts as a veteran minimum salary deal when it comes to the overall cap hit, but they are able to increase these players’ salaries from the minimum by a fixed number that will not count against the cap.

In Rodriguez’s case, the veteran minimum for a player with four accrued seasons is $1,215,000. According to the CBA, for the 2026 season, the “Four-Year Player Qualifying Contract” can increase the salary by a maximum of an extra $1.55 million.

So if you look at the actual cap hit, it’s based on that veteran minimum salary:

Vet minimum salary: $1,215,000
Signing bonus: $137,500
Workout bonus: $50,000

Add those together, and you get $1,402,500—Rodriguez’s cap hit for 2026.

But the actual payment Rodriguez will be getting in 2026 is this:

Actual salary: $2,562,500
Signing bonus: $137,500
Workout bonus: $50,000

For a total of $2,700,000 in earnings. In short, the Lions are saving nearly $1.3 million by using this salary cap tool. And for Rodriguez, the benefit is that everything but the workout bonus is guaranteed. Note that no player is obligated to accept this kind of contract, but for a player like Rodriguez, who is coming off an injury-shortened season, it’s a nice little guaranteed payday that he may not have been able to get elsewhere. And for the Lions, it’s a way to pay a player his value while also getting some savings on cap space.

This isn’t the first time the Lions have used this cap trick. They used it with Jalen Reeves-Maybin back in 2021, and they’ll likely use it again.

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