The fallout from Detroit’s toxic demolition dirt scandal continues to grow months after former Mayor Mike Duggan left office, with the city now testing more than 650 sites and spending millions more to measure the scope of a crisis that was announced during the final days of his administration.
Months after Duggan left office to run as an independent for governor, the scandal is still growing.
In December, Duggan suggested the toxic dirt issue was relatively small and contained. But since then, the scope and cost of the problem have continued to grow, with more than 650 sites now flagged for testing, additional properties identified through a police investigation, and Detroit increasing its testing contract by 350%.
That has opened Duggan to political attacks as he runs for governor. On Monday, the Michigan Democratic Party launched billboards in Detroit and a digital ad campaign attacking Duggan over the scandal, arguing that his administration allowed contaminated dirt containing chemicals such as lead and arsenic to be spread through city neighborhoods, putting children at risk and leaving taxpayers with a multimillion-dollar cleanup bill.
On April 9, Detroit’s Office of Contracting and Procurement asked City Council to increase its contract with environmental consulting firm Mannik & Smith Group by $3.5 million, raising the total from $1 million to $4.5 million for environmental testing. City Council later referred the amendment to its Public Health and Safety Standing Committee for closer review.
Tim Palazzolo, director of the city’s Construction and Demolition Department, tells Metro Times that the original $1 million agreement was a broader environmental services contract approved in 2024 before questions emerged about sites linked to demolition contractor Gayanga and dirt supplier Iron Horse. The $3.5 million increase, he says, is solely to cover sampling at roughly 650 flagged sites.
Of those, he says, 424 had been identified by the end of 2025, while about 250 more were flagged later as a result of a Detroit Police Department investigation that began in 2025.
The numbers show how large the scandal has become. In December, just days before leaving office, Duggan said the city was testing 424 sites tied to Iron Horse and another 87 tied specifically to Gayanga, and he said all of them would be tested by March 2026. By early March, however, city officials acknowledged they had fallen behind and would need to examine more than 100 additional sites, including nearly 200 more Gayanga properties flagged by the police investigation.
Palazzolo blames the delay on winter weather, saying historically low temperatures and heavy snow cover made testing impossible for nearly two months and pushed back the city’s timetable. He says 76 sites that exceeded standards set by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy have either started or completed remediation. As more results are finalized, he says, the city will remediate any site that exceeds EGLE standards.
The contaminated dirt scandal is especially problematic for Duggan because it grew out of the demolition program he long touted as one of his biggest accomplishments. Duggan left office on Jan. 1 to campaign full-time for governor after repeatedly promoting the city’s blight removal effort as a national model. But the latest dirt crisis raises new questions about oversight, transparency, and public health at the tail end of his administration.
Testing at some sites found contaminants, including arsenic, lead, chromium, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are toxic chemicals linked to cancer risk. Experts say residents may have been exposed for years and that children faced particular risks from contaminated soil and dust near the demolition sites. Journalist Tom Perkins, a former Metro Times reporter, told WDET that Duggan was “skating out of town” while toxic pits remained next to residents.
Duggan’s campaign defended the former mayor’s handling of the contaminated sites.
“Everything Mayor Duggan said at the December press conference was accurate,” Andrea Bitely, spokeswoman for his campaign, said in a statement to Metro Times. “He also indicated the Detroit police investigation he initiated was ongoing. It was fully expected the investigation would uncover additional questionable sites and the $15 million reserve was based on the expectation more sites would be discovered.”
Bitely insisted that taxpayers likely aren’t on the hook for cleaning up the toxic dirt.
“Over the last 12 years, the city has successfully recovered 100% reimbursement from vendors for the cost of replacing bad dirt and Mayor Duggan expects similar reimbursement efforts will be made against Iron Horse, the main source of the suspect dirt, and Gayanga,” Bitely said.
The scandal is just the latest in a series of contamination problems. By the time the most recent problems surfaced in December, it was at least the fifth contaminated dirt discovery during Duggan’s 12 years in office. Investigations repeatedly uncovered problems involving contaminated or unauthorized backfill.
In December, Duggan also said the costs of cleanup would not be “anywhere near” $15 million. At the time, he estimated it would cost about $18,000 per site to remove and replace contaminated dirt and said replacing dirt at 400 sites could cost roughly $8 million. He said the city would do the cleanup first and sue contractors later to recover the money.
Palazzolo disputes the idea that the contamination problem has grown beyond what Duggan publicly described before leaving office.
“The number of sites flagged for testing is not outside of the expectations reflected at the update provided in December, when there was still an active DPD investigation underway,” he says.
Whatever the case, Sheffield’s administration has tightened the city’s safeguards for demolition fill. Palazzolo says the city will now use only approved native or virgin material sites, cut the number of approved primary source sites from 14 to 7 “for better quality control,” increase inspections of source pits from annual to monthly, strengthen contract language to better verify where dirt came from, and develop protocols for testing source pits and randomly sampling fill as it is placed at demolition sites.
“Because of Mike Duggan, children across Detroit are now exposed to dangerous and cancerous chemicals that pose serious health risks,” Michigan Democratic Party Chair Curtis Hertel said Monday. “Duggan allowed lead and arsenic to be dumped across the city and taxpayers are now footing the bill to clean up his toxic mess. Mike Duggan should explain why he downplayed this issue and allowed these cancerous chemicals near our kids.”
The most recent poll found that Duggan is losing ground to his likely gubernatorial opponents, Democrat Jocelyn Benson and Republican John James. Benson was leading with 27% of the votes, followed by James at 19% and Duggan at 16%, according to the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University. But it’s still anyone’s race because a third of voters were still undecided.
Related
About the Author
Discover more from USA NEWS
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
