Are the Dirt Heaps at the Northland Mall Poisoned? The Detroit Inspector General said toxic dirt came from Southfield, but local politicians haven't admitted there's a problem yet By Charlie LeDuff @Charlieleduff Southfield — I filed a complaint with the Southfield Police Department this week, requesting an investigation into potential crimes against humanity. Are the citizens of Southfield—like the people of neighboring Detroit—the unwitting victims of a mass poisoning? If there is a benign explanation, we’d love to hear it. But officials from the city of Southfield, the county of Oakland, the state of Michigan, and U.S. federal authorities have not provided one. Thus, we found ourselves at the Southfield PD. It is no secret that there is a sprawling criminal investigation into the origins of dirt used to fill holes in Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan’s decade-long demolition blitz. The Detroit Office of the Inspector General alleges that at least one unscrupulous contractor, Brian McKinney (a man with close ties to Duggan and Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield), diverted contaminated soil into Detroit and used it to fill holes where houses once stood. The IG has had some holes excavated. Tests reveal soil so toxic that it is unsafe for human contact. So where did the sickening soil come from? The IG alleges that at least some of it came from the old Northland Mall site just across 8 Mile Road, in Southfield, a city that bills itself as “The Center of It All.” The question here is obvious: If the people of Detroit have been poisoned, then what about the people of Southfield? Their city leaders, fancying themselves high-end developers, purchased the 100 acres of buildings and parking lots that comprised the iconic, and abandoned, Northland Mall. While demolition was ongoing, Mayor Ken Siver encouraged contractors from around the region to bring him dirt. Mountains of it. “Stockpiling clean dirt for free and storing it on site because we have the space,” Siver told Fox 2 back in 2017. Free, clean dirt? Really? Remember, this was the same time Detroit was caught up in a federal grand jury investigation, suspected of using contaminated highway slag because no clean, affordable dirt could be found. The soil from Southfield that was dumped into Detroit has tested positive for excessive levels of mercury, lead, chromium, and PAH—contamination consistent with roadways and industrial slag. Southfield found itself buried in heavy losses in 2021 and sold the site to a private developer with the promise of up to $200 million in public incentives if he built “a city within a city.” Five years later, there are some half-built condos missing windows and wiring and walls. The developer began excavating the mountain of contaminated dirt to the area's landfills. Eventually, the IG claims, the poisoned dirt made its way to Detroit. But not all of it. Huge mounds of the stuff can be seen today all the way from 9 Mile Road. The tops of the slag heaps have been flattened over the years by whipping winds, giving them the look of the grand mesas of the Colorado Plateau. Seagulls wade in lagoons of brackish water that flow into the sewers and streets. The vista gives one the sickening feeling of staring into a Super Fund site. And Enjoyer has learned that the development company was fined last year for performing work without first removing asbestos. “You know, it’s been here so long, I just sort of got used to it,” said a man working on his building directly across Greenfield Road. “Nobody’s told us a thing about it. We deserve that much. We all got children.” The city that calls itself “The Center of It All” has indeed become the center of it all… all the wrong things. The center of a potential mass poisoning. The center of wasted tax dollars. The center of incompetent political leadership that prefers to bury its head than dig itself out of the problem. The center of a growing environmental scandal. How bad is it? Who knows? The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
