DETROIT — State environmental regulators have issued a second air quality violation notice for Stellantis’ year-old Jeep assembly plant on Detroit’s east side — this time for violating its emissions permit.
On Oct. 20, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy cited the plant for not properly ducting emissions through a system that destroys volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and prevents their release into the atmosphere, according to the violation, which was posted online by the community activism group Detroit People’s Platform.
In a statement, a Stellantis spokeswoman said the violation was related to ducting requirements within the plant’s paint shop.
“The plant has been and continues to be in full compliance with the permitted emissions limits,” Stellantis spokeswoman Jodi Tinson said Wednesday. “We will work to address this issue promptly.”
Residents near the plant have complained of foul odors being emitted from the complex, including Robert Shobe, 59, who lives on the corner of Beniteau and Canfield streets with a backyard that backs up to the plant.
“I’ve been a prisoner in my home for at least the last four months because I only come out when I have to,” Shobe told Crain’s on Wednesday at a media event organized by Detroit People’s Platform a block away from the plant.
Shobe said he owns his house and has lived there with his family for 26 years. Soon after production at the Detroit Assembly Complex plant along Mack Avenue began in the spring, he said he began regularly noticing the stench of paint, which led to his eyes, nose and chest burning and causing nausea.
“There’s a lot of people who have the same problems,” he said. “There’s people that have it worse because we’ve had people that had to go to the hospital with their children for asthma. It’s unacceptable what’s going here.”
The city says its hands are tied. “This is strictly an EGLE regulatory and enforcement issue,” city spokesman John Roach told Crain’s.
The Oct. 20 air quality violation is the second for the plant in as many months.
In September, EGLE inspectors cited the Auburn Hills-based automaker for a “moderate to strong” paint or solvent odor emitting from the assembly plant’s new paint shop.
EGLE’s air quality investigators documented the odors on three separate occasions — Aug. 27, Aug. 31 and Sept. 3 — after fielding complaints about nuisance odors, according to the first violation notice.
Stellantis, then still known as FCA, invested $1.6 billion into the 2.5 million-square-foot assembly plant, the combination of two old engine plants and the newly constructed paint shop.
More than 4,900 workers at the Mack Avenue plant assemble Jeep Grand Cherokee SUVs.
As part of its required Community Benefits Agreement, Stellantis and the city agreed to a $35 million investment in neighborhoods around the complex centered on “workforce development and training programs, education, neighborhood and housing improvements, and sustainable operations,” according to the automaker.