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Zug Island coke refinery fined $100M, ordered to comply with pollution standards
The company says it will appeal the order
By Pratyush Dayal
CBC News · Published Feb 19, 2026
A U.S. court has ordered the company running a Zug Island refinery in Detroit to pay a penalty of $100 million US for its sulphur dioxide pollution.
A Windsor resident who lives just across the river from the refinery says this was a long time coming.
“The smell of sulphur is so pungent that even when I take my dog outside, she starts sneezing,” said Sandwich resident Kimberly Malega.
On Wednesday, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan ordered DTE Energy Company and three of its subsidiaries to comply with the Clean Air Act and pay the $100 million US civil penalty.
The EES Coke facility, located on Zug Island between River Rouge and Detroit, failed to meet federal standards for sulphur dioxide in the air, the ruling said.
The facility uses coal and other raw materials to produce metallurgical coke, an input for making steel, and the court found that the facility had exceeded permitted sulphur dioxide levels.
“The facility emitted over 3,200 tons of sulfur dioxide pollution in 2018, compared to permitted baseline sulfur dioxide levels of under 2,100 tons per year,” the ruling said.
“In an August 2025 order, the court found that the facility violated the Clean Air Act … the court found that emissions from the facility caused asthma attacks, heart attacks, strokes, increased blood pressure, and increased risk of cancer, asthma, Alzheimer’s disease, and early deaths.”
The ruling said that the company saved about $70 million by not complying with the Clean Air Act.
“We are extremely disappointed in the court’s ruling and its negative implications on the domestic supply of coke to the U.S. steel industry," a DTE Energy spokesperson said in an emailed statement Wednesday.
"We have been anticipating this order and are eager to make our appeal to the 6th Circuit Court."
Derek Coronado is the executive director of Citizens Environment Alliance of Southwestern Ontario. Speaking about Windsor's air quality, he says pollution often blows in from Detroit into Windsor.
“Up to 90 per cent of our smog was coming in from the United States,” he said.
Windsor has had a stretch of foggy days and an air quality warning earlier in the week. Coronado says that's because fog is often filled with pollution.
“That fog during those hours where we had the temperature inversion was just a thick blanket of air pollution.”
Sulfur dioxide and fog are a 'bad combination'
Jeff Brook, an associate professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto, said sulfur dioxide is a key pollutant that contributes to acid rain.
The ruling is great news for Windsor, Brook said, as it would force the industry to comply with standards. But he said there are many other pollutants, with more toxicity, that are going untracked.
“We're all hopeful that even though it seems like there's less environmental stringency from the current U.S. administration that there is no backsliding. But when you do see that they save money by polluting more, it becomes a Wild West even. So that's very concerning.”
He said it’s important that all levels of government demand evidence of compliance.
The ongoing fog in Windsor can exacerbate the health impacts around the pollutant, he said.
“When sulfur dioxide is taken up by the fog, it actually turns into tiny particles and sulfuric acid mists much more quickly,” he said.
“That's a bad combination, sulphur dioxide and fog."
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