DETROIT: Anti-Incinerator Protest Tuesday

Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength,
a faith-based Detroit group, is planning a protest and rally Tuesday in support of shutting down the Detroit incinerator.

 The city will automatically renew its contract with the company that operates the incinerator in June unless city officials decide otherwise.

The incinerator, located at the intersection of I-75 and I-94, was built amid huge controversy in the late 1980s.

Organizers cite health concerns and costs to taxpayers as reasons they want the incinerator closed. Detroit burns trash at the facility, and the steam is used to heat downtown buildings.

City taxpayers pay hundreds of millions of dollars more than the suburbs for trash disposal, and air quality near the incinerator has affected asthma hospitalization rates, MOSES said in a news release.

The rally will start at 6:30 p.m. at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, 4605 Cass, at the corner of Forest.

Stabenow to push bill on funding health centers
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., will visit the Community Health and Social Services (CHASS) Center on Monday to discuss her proposed legislation to provide capital improvement funding for community health centers across the country.

Her visit is to begin at 9 a.m. at CHASS, 5635 W. Fort St. near Junction in southwest Detroit.

Many community health centers, including CHASS, are funded as federally qualified health centers under Section 330 of the Public Health Services Act.

Currently, these funds only underwrite operational support to care for uninsured and underinsured people, but do not support brick-and-mortar projects. Under Stabenow's proposed legislation, community health centers would have a separate stream of funding that can be applied to building renovations or new construction, CHASS said.

CHASS is undertaking a $15-million capital campaign to build a new facility on land adjacent to the existing center.

Compiled by Free Press staff.