Drive in southwest Detroit on any given night in the Oakwood Heights neighborhood and you'll see plumes of white smoke coming from the towering Marathon Petroleum plant.
You'll also breathe in an unpleasant smell. It's like a scene out of a movie.
The question you have to ask yourself is: How has this impacted the neighborhood? How does this impact everyday life?
John Carlisle of the Detroit Free Press answers many of the questions Sunday in a lengthy story that begins on page one and spills over into two inside pages.
Carlisle writes that Marathon about two years ago began a buy-out program to purchase people's property to create a 100-acre buffer zone around the plant. He writes that 9 out of 10 residents took the offer. Others have chosen to stay for one reason or another.
He writes:
Some couldn’t leave the place they’d called home for decades. Some were suspicious about the company’s offer and refused to meet. And some came to like the idea of living in the peace-and-quiet midst of a very green, very quiet, newly sculpted parkland.
The neighborhood used to be plagued by drug dealers and shootings. But Carlisle reports that some people like the peace and quite that Marathon created by buying the properties. Still, the lifestyle hasn't always been so great.
One resident told Carlisle that he sleeps with a wet rag over his face every night "so I can breath and stuff."
Not so great. -- Allan Lengel
