The owner of several metro Detroit concrete crushing operations that some residents say bring dust and disruption to neighborhoods could soon learn whether the state will grant his three-year attempt to build a new plant in the city of Wayne.
Anthony Calo, owner of Wayne-based Van Born Investments, is asking the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE) to sign off on a revised request to fill existing wetlands and reconstruct new ones to make room for the proposed crusher.
Amid complaints of excessive dust, noise and truck traffic at the company’s existing sites in Detroit and Salem Township, some Wayne residents worry the development would bring similar disturbances to their community.
Susan Powers, a Wayne resident with five acres near the proposed site, said although the land for the proposed concrete crushing site isn’t zoned as residential, “I kind of beg to differ.”
“My house has been here for over 100 years,” said Powers, whose property is zoned residential.
The application is the latest version of a plan that seeks to balance space for concrete crushing with preserving the surrounding environmental ecosystems.
Calo would make a $4 million investment on the site if the project is approved, paying $1.7 million in yearly payroll, generating income tax for the city without looking for any tax abatements, an attorney for the company said. The facility would create 36 full-time on-site, trucking, and clerical jobs.
Calo already operates Dino-Mite Crushing and Recycling in Detroit, Kraken Crushed Concrete and Recycling in Salem and Brownstown townships, and Caveman Crushed Concrete in Highland Park. The facilities crush concrete and stone from local construction projects to reuse in other construction projects.
EGLE will issue a notice opening a 20-day window for public comments on the Wayne proposal after reviewing the application and will use the feedback to determine whether a public hearing should be held.
Wetland concerns
Van Born Investments first floated its plans to the Wayne Planning Commission in 2022.
Shortly after, the company sent an application to fill and reconstruct a portion of the nearby McClaughrey Drain wetlands to make room for crushing operations. The first proposal was rejected by EGLE and withdrawn by the company. EGLE then determined that a second proposal would have “significant adverse effects” on the surrounding Rouge River habitat. EGLE, at the time, also noted that the Rouge River had already lost 94% of its wetlands.
Michael Wais, an attorney who represents Calo, told BridgeDetroit the proposed Wayne crusher will repurpose a site that has sat vacant for 40 or 50 years where people have dumped garbage and appliances.
“We’re going to come in here and clean it up and do something that’s going to help the city,” said Wais, noting that the current application won’t have any adverse impacts.
In a petition against EGLE’s denial of its second application, Van Born Investments argued that its original proposal would’ve increased wetland wildlife habitat “nearly two-fold” because the rebuilt ecosystem would have been of “greater quality” and protected by an easement. The company’s current application reduces the proposed wetland impact to a third of an acre. It also proposes placing concrete stockpiles closer to neighbors’ backyards, the application notes.
Jeff Johnston, a public information officer for EGLE, said the department only issues permits for projects that fit its “stringent” criteria. So, a vast majority – including the Van Born development project – are significantly modified to avoid and minimize impacts on water resources.
The Wayne proposal is similar to a plan that EGLE granted Calo in 2019 to relocate wetlands and expand the Salem crushing site.
A vote from the city of Wayne won’t be needed on Calo’s proposal if EGLE grants the company’s latest permit request, according to Lori Gouin, the city of Wayne’s director of Community Development, Planning, and Downtown Development Authority. The city approved the plan in 2022.
Calo has worked to develop more wetlands to replace what was impacted in Salem and has proposed the same for Wayne, his attorney said.
The wetlands are important to Wayne residents like Powers as well.
Powers has lived on Treadwell Avenue near the proposed project site since 2001. She said she has enjoyed gardening on her land and frequently sees turkeys, foxes and deer.
Since the Wayne city clerk sent residents a notice about the proposed crushing site in 2022, she said she worries about increased noise and air pollution. Site plans indicate that a small buffer of land around the creek would be the only barrier between the operation and residents on Treadwell.
If EGLE approves Van Born’s new plan, resident Tim Wicker said he’s concerned that the concrete stockpiles would abut his backyard off Bendix Street. The land behind his house was zoned heavy industrial long before he moved there in 2008, but Wicker said he has still enjoyed the benefits of the creek and woods behind his home.
“We’re going to be breathing that dust in,” Wicker said. “It’s already dusty in our neighborhood because of Treadwell, (a dirt road).”
Support from leaders in Wayne
Before presenting his plan to the Wayne City Council in 2022, Calo invited city officials like Gouin and several city council members to his locations in Salem and Detroit.
“It was impressive to see the integration within a community in that way,” Council Member Kevin Dowd said during the 2022 council meeting.
Council Member Deborah Wass, who voted in favor of the development, asked that the city have the ability to test water and air quality at any time and be notified of any overnight trucking on the site, conditions which were already required by Wayne’s building department.
“The proposed development will be a large step in supporting economic development objectives in the region,” Gouin later told EGLE in a letter supporting Van Born’s most recent application. She told EGLE that the crushing facility would support the local workforce and attract businesses into the area.
One of six council members, Alfred Brock, voted against the plan in 2022. Dowd and Mayor John Rhaesa also voted in favor. None of the city officials responded to BridgeDetroit’s requests for comment. Planning Commissioner Denise Adkins, who was present to hear the original plans in 2022, also did not respond.
Changes in Salem
Calo’s companies, Kraken and Calo and Sons, reconstructed wetlands at the Salem site, creating changes for some neighbors.
In 2019, with EGLE’s approval, Kraken replaced over two acres of wetlands connected to the Johnson Drain, a tributary of the middle branch of the Rouge River. Kraken reconstructed three-and-a-half acres on Pearl Street, stretching behind Salem Elementary School and protecting the land with an easement.
Kraken received a violation from EGLE in 2023, alleging it discharged industrial stormwater into ponds connected to Johnson Creek without a proper permit. Records show Kraken received an industrial stormwater discharge permit the next year.
Wais, the attorney, said Kraken did not think the company needed a permit for its Salem operation because there is no runoff from the site, noting a detention pond.
“We have the permit that we don’t even need to solve something that is never going to happen,” Wais said.
Salem Township resident Michelle Stanbury said she isn’t bothered by other neighboring industrial businesses like the Arbor Hills landfill and didn’t experience excessive dust, noise or truck traffic living near the industrial district until Kraken started operating the crusher. She attributes it to the frequent truck traffic bringing concrete in and out of the facility.
“We’re used to trucks, but not of the capacity that it turned into with Calo,” said Stanbury, whose backyard backs up to the former wetlands.
The Salem Planning Commission originally approved Calo and Sons to park 30 trucks at 7871 Chubb Rd. inside the general industrial district in 2012. Crushing operations started in 2014 during the I-96 remodeling project. The company transported a portable concrete crusher to the Salem site by June of 2014, according to a scheduled inspection report from EGLE.
Since then, Stanbury said she has dealt with excessive noise and dust. She said her family and neighbors got some level of dust because of the nearby landfill, but never recalled her house or cars being as dusty as they are now.
“I can go and get my truck washed, and the next day it’s just got a layer of dust across it,” Stanbury said. “You can dust today and tomorrow, you gotta dust again. It’s just there.”
Stanbury and some of her neighbors said they have tried reporting issues with township supervisor Gary Whittaker, but he has not provided helpful information or intervention.
Whittaker said operations like Kraken have to get proper approval from the township’s planning commission, but he can’t pick and choose what businesses operate in an industrial district.
“If you’re going to live near that, you’re going to get some noises,” Whittaker said.
In an April 2022 letter to Wayne’s Board of Zoning Appeals, Whittaker said Calo converted to all-electric equipment to reduce noise and dust, used multiple street sweepers to clear dirt on the road leaving the facility, and asked drivers and outside companies not to slam tailgates. He said Calo always meets or is below EGLE’s acceptable noise and dust levels during site evaluations.
“He takes great pride in not only in maintaining his equipment but also in the appearance of his facility. His property is meticulously maintained all year through,” Whittaker wrote in the letter. “He has always been open and honest and receptive to many suggestions. He has truly been a business partner within our community.”
A settlement in Detroit
Before Kraken began operating in Salem Township, the company sought to open a location on Linwood on Detroit’s west side, near Focus: HOPE. Residents fought against it and the city’s building and planning departments ultimately denied the request.
In 2018, Detroit’s Buildings, Safety Engineering, and Environmental Department (BSEED) approved a request from Calo’s company, Green Valley Properties, to operate Dino-Mite in Detroit’s Schoolcraft Southfield neighborhood. EGLE issued a permit to operate in 2019.
Before granting the permit, BSEED held a public hearing and mailed a notice to 31 property owners within 300 feet of the site, garnering 30 letters of support and two letters of opposition.
George Perdue, president of the Schoolcraft Improvement Association, told the City Planning Commission in September that the city presented the development to residents as a landscaping supply store. Green Valley did open a landscaping supply store next to the Dino-Mite crushing facility.
“Since then, we’ve come to realize and know that it was all along a plan for a concrete crusher,” Perdue said. “We were sold a bill of goods.”
Wais told BridgeDetroit via email that residents requested the landscape supply shop to have neighborhood access to those materials. He maintains that the Green Valley project was always a crushing facility.
Dawn Henderson said she’s hesitant to let her kids play outside, afraid that dust from the nearby Dino-Mite facility will trigger their asthma.
“They just want to run around and play like normal kids,” she said.
Henderson keeps air purifiers on every floor of her home to mitigate the dust, and said she rarely opens the windows because the dust is so bad.
Wais said the Detroit facility is “one of the cleanest” in the state and said no dust leaves the site. He pointed to a recently settled lawsuit between Green Valley and the city, which he said found no merit in claims that dust leaves the facility.
“The vast majority of any ‘dust’ (that leaves the site) is from trucks that are dirty when they enter the facility,” Wais wrote in an email.
Wais said Green Valley has installed rumble strips to knock dust off the trucks, “commercial grade sweepers” are used throughout the day, and concrete stockpiles “get water constantly and continuously to stop dust from emitting.”
The company has 35-40 employees at the crushing facility and retail center, four mechanics, and 15 drivers. Green Valley spends approximately $3 million in annual compensation for their employees, Wais wrote. He said the facility provides a significant return to the city through taxes.
BSEED took Green Valley to court in 2022 in an attempt to shut down the facility after it accumulated nearly 300 blight tickets. Detroit’s Department of Administrative Hearings (DAH) overruled the request, which BSEED appealed, sending the case to the Wayne County Circuit Court. Judge Dana Hathaway ultimately returned the case to DAH before the city’s law department reached a settlement with the company outside of the DAH in October.
The settlement includes several stipulations, including prohibiting the company from opening new crushing sites in the city and implementing visual emissions testing for dust. The company will also contribute $25,000 toward repairing roads around the site.
Detroit enforces its fugitive dust ordinance by requiring visual inspections of how much dust is in the air, not by monitoring air quality. Businesses are allowed to generate dust up to 5% opacity on site, the general manager of Detroit’s environmental affairs Crystal Rogers said. But dust is not allowed to migrate off-site.
Since 2022, Green Valley has submitted quarterly visual emission testing reports to the city to comply with the city’s bulk solid materials ordinance, testing visual emissions from six locations on the crushing site. All reports found that no visual emissions on the site were over 5% opacity.
Wais maintains that the DAH and settlement agreement determined the company is in full compliance.
“The residents can complain, but the city confirmed we’re in full compliance. Go try to track dust from our site. Track it anywhere. You won’t get to any of the residents,” Wais said.
The city’s law department did not respond to requests for comment about the site’s compliance.
Schoolcraft Southfield residents are used to living near industrial businesses like truck repair, carbonic ice and gas storage and a junkyard. The Detroit neighborhood is also locked between three busy roadways—Greenfield Road, I-96, and Southfield Freeway.
Corporation Counsel Conrad Mallett said the agreement resulting from the lawsuit has power because there’s no constitutional argument Green Valley can make if it violates the consent agreement and is taken back to court. The new measures outlined in the deal will significantly reduce dust around the operation, he said.
“We think that we’re in a position, in fact, to be sure that the improvements that you have a right to expect get made and get made in a timely manner,” Mallett said.
Perdue, the Schoolcraft Improvement Association president, said he wished the settlement had some community support components. He said the settlement wasn’t what he wanted to see.
“Now that the city has come to this agreement, how do we – I hate to say this word – coexist with a concrete crusher right in our neighborhood?” Perdue said.
Schoolcraft Southfield residents are taking other steps to fight against heavy industry in their neighborhood. The City Planning Commission approved a proposal to downzone land in September to prohibit businesses like Dino-Mite from expanding and new industrial businesses from operating on the land. The city’s law department will review the ordinance and then send it to Detroit City Council.
Wais said the company is “going out of our way to help the community.”
“Salem Township loves us, Wayne loves us,” he said, “and we are in compliance with everything we have to be in the city of Detroit.”
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