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“I really give a lot of credit to Brian and the mayor (Drew Dilkens) for speaking out on this so quickly, because it was timed to be at a time that was very inconvenient for everybody, in the middle of the holidays and kind of in the dark of night,” said Gregg Ward, owner of the Detroit-Windsor Truck Ferry, which is permitted to transport trucks carrying hazardous materials across the river.
The issue only came to light when Michigan state Sen. Stephanie Chang (D — Detroit), who represents neighbourhoods around the Ambassador Bridge, discovered the Ambassador Bridge provision — allowing certain hazardous materials — in the bill and voted against it, despite the bill’s overall good intent.
“Allowing these types of hazardous materials to be transported across the Ambassador Bridge — a bridge that is over 90 years old, not up to the same level of inspections, traffic safety features, spill containment, or fire suppression systems needed to protect my residents’ safety — is downright dangerous,” Chang wrote in a commentary published last week in the Detroit Free Press, blaming Republican politicians for adding a provision that had nothing to do with COVID relief.
Ward and Masse both say that a crash on the bridge involving hazmat trucks could be an environmental, public safety and economic disaster. Because of the lack of chemical containment and fire suppression features on the 1929 bridge, a crash could result in spillage into the river, contamination of neighbourhoods and the shutdown of the bridge for a prolonged period. That kind of disruption of truck traffic could decimate the auto industry as well as the supply of goods across the border, they say.
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