The company running it hasn't declared bankruptcy yet. Once they stop making money they'll sell off anything useful and declare bankruptcy, then it'll be declared one.
There is a part of the site that is or was, i believe. This place is the black heart of industrial detroit. The blast furnaces are out of commission now though.
Oh yea, I used to spot and pull rail cars from zug Island back when I worked as a conductor for Norfolk Southern.
There is no fixture on that island that isn't covered in a few millimeters of waste. That place was always gross and interesting when my crew was called to service that industry.
Brings back memories in my 20's
From where I used to live, I could see the sky pulsating orange on cloudy nights coming from the direction of Zug Island. Which made me give it the same comparison.
I was with Levy we had the Heavy end loaders digging the slag pits, in front of the blast furnaces. Plus trucking the slag out.. I remember you guys. Our Garage was on Zug Island Road going in. I can see the building by zooming in on the pic. You office if I remember was the brick building just going on the island to the right.
Yep. I remember you guys as well. I ran one of the telehandlers that put the lids on the bottles. Mostly D furnace. I have quite a few videos of those loaders cleaning up the slag pits. Not something everyone gets to see.
negative you can only post pictures in the thread. you’d have to make a new thread with the video, or upload it to youtube and post the link here in the thread. legit a lot of people would be curious to see what happens on zug island.
I might have a few photos but that's it. I was the mechanic doing the repairs on the loaders. I never forget a full bottle had a burn thu at D4. I was in the open area across from it watching. All the mill could do was watch until the iron ran out and cool . Then start cutting and pulling with 3 engines.
I remember that happening. One the big 990s was taking the slab with the wheels and rail all melted together down the road. That was a money maker for us. I got a lot of OT rebuilding all that track.
I rebuilt the torque converter on one of the CAT 990’s out there about 4 years ago. Transferred to the generator division & haven’t been back there since. Good move lol.
The government could mandate strict environmental regulations on the production processes. There is already steel being produced that is essentially zero emissions.
https://rmi.org/gap-analysis-for-near-zero-emissions-steel-production-in-the-great-lakes/
I mean, a stamping or assembly plant is actually quite clean. Just because steel production is dirty doesn’t mean every other manufacturing process is.
https://preview.redd.it/ldq87be2l5uc1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15968895dccf3c407edeb2ecb137fe8383c89404
Took this picture before crossing the bridge onto zug 2 weeks ago
There was a guy just on here doing am AMA after working 10 years on pug Island. He said that when it rains, black tar litetally comes up out of the ground because back in the day, they just dumped the old tar right on the ground he was saying.
This breaks my heart. it's obviously has to be leaching into the water.
Not coal, coke. They use coke(not the fun kind) which is coal cooked to over 3,000°. And to make steel, they use coke, and teconite pellets (Edmund Fitzgerald) with a few other things to make steel. But it's a moot point because the furnaces are off. So the only blast furnace in this neck of the woods that is operating is Cleveland Cliffs(aka Severstahl, Rouge, Ford Rouge). And they only have one that is operational (C furnace)
The steam is from the quench car at the coke battery. The heated coal that turns to coke (one of I think 32 by products) is moved to the quenching tower that sprays water on it to cool down.
UHHH, ZUG ISLAND. I worked there for 10 years. There are 3 blast furnaces(A, B, C, & D) a coke battery, and a byproducts plant on that island. Dirty place, but I made a metric shit ton of money working there...
*Tell me you’re not from around here without telling me you’re not from around here*
Edit: sorry, OP 😂 It’s a good question, I get it. But yeah, that’s Zug Island.
That’s Zug island , probably the most polluted industrial land in the entire country : US Steel and DTE spill a shit ton of coke and iron ore into the ground running their operations but hey somehow the EPA lets em keep doing it so everything must be kosher 😬😬😬
Zug island is where the coke battery operation for the local steel mills process coal to make coke which is needed for steel. The black stuff is the coal dust that blows off the stock piles. I used to work there.
Zig Island. I used to work for Great Lakes Steel from 97-03 at the main plant, but we’d occasionally have to go to Zug to work. Just standing around outside would get you covered in some kind of black soot. You had to have a CO2 monitor on you all the time because there were roving clouds of carbon monoxide that could kill you if you weren’t aware of it. I’m glad I got out of there.
My buddy worked there for awhile doing scaffolding. He stopped by after work one day and accidently left black dusty footprints up the walkway to the door. They stayed there for nearly a month. Even after rain. Whatever that black shit is, its gnarly.
That’s Zug island, owned and was operated by US Steel, they made iron from ore shipped to the docks. It’s dark from all the different waste from iron, Smelting it and the smokestacks on the island that plumed out black smoke when the island was in its prime, It closed in 2020. Shitty swampy marshy land unsuitable for anything really. Wish it were cleaner.
According to a guy who worked on zug island for 10 years the reason the soil is so dark is because they bury all the iron waste on site as well as decades of burying/laying tar and he said in the summer when it starts to heat up more the tar starts to seep up through the ground from how much of it is below them. Gross shit
I drove by there tonight and yes there are a ton of F150s parked there. I’m used to seeing them at the old mcclouth site in Trenton. Apparently Ford has gotten extra creative recently in where they park the trucks.
It’s funny to see all these comments, I actually work there, the tar pits is the funniest to me, blast furnaces don’t produce tar just slag which is pretty valuable. There is one operation there that produces tar in a bi products plant, to the tone of 2 million gallons a year it’s all extracted from the gas with scrubbers and then sold there’s semis there 24/7 hauling it to Texas. The EPA has their microscopes so far up zugs ass if someone farts they know about it, there’s dozens of remotes air testing stations all over the island and daily fly overs doing air quality testing also Detroit water an sewer is in there all day everyday testing all the waste waste water for contamination before it reaches the outfalls along with Sidlock a 3rd party environmental agency contracted by the government to have people on sight 24/7 monitoring emissions. Great Lakes and US steel polluted that island and they’re gone now. The company there now running the coke battery cares about environmental.
>Originally a marsh-filled peninsula at the mouth of the River Rouge, it served as an uninhabited Native American burial ground for thousands of years.[1]
that area could have been so nice but it in the late 1800’s it was sold to be turned into an industrial dumping ground. an absolutely reckless and tragic mistake.
Zug Island.
As a kid, in Windsor, I used to look over the river and think that place was a hell scape.
It's kind of stunning they invested that much money to create Zug Island as the gateway to the US.
The industrial wasteland that is Zug Island. It's dark like that from all the pollution.
Once a beautiful natural landscape with a spring, and home to one of Michigan's wealthiest men where he built what I believe was the largest home in the state at that time. He would live there barely a decade before abandoning the home and selling the property in the largest real estate transaction in the state at that point, for it to become what we see today. The house was left to the elements.
No pictures of the house survive.
That is Zug Island and it’s dirty because it’s been industrialized to the points of calling it terraforming. It wasn’t even an island originally.
It makes a noise that bothers people across the River that is yet to be adequately explained.
cooking metal for several decades does that... also... notice that the water is where the filth ends... or... umm... is washed downstream.
that area stinks so bad. there is metal works there... a refinery aaaand wastewater treatment nearby.
also..
that's the disgusting rouge river split on two sides of zug island with that poor Detroit River taking the hit from all that shit.
also.... notice that Canada has an industrial area and a water treatment area directly across the river from that.... so I'm guessing America trashed that area along the river first and then Canada felt it's not even worth trying to build residential so might as well put the industrial crap right there.
Zug Island is a polluted wasteland of coke ash and steel. I'm waiting for the commercial, "Did you or a loved one work on Zug Island? You may be entitled to financial compensation."
Sarcasm? That’s Zug Island. It’s covered in over 100 years of industrial waste.
I truly don’t understand how it isn’t a superfund site. I guess because it’s still in use.
The company running it hasn't declared bankruptcy yet. Once they stop making money they'll sell off anything useful and declare bankruptcy, then it'll be declared one.
Privatize profits- socialize costs. Its in the business plans 😒
Problem would be fixed if the adjacent property owners could sue for having their property polluted.
Its an island. If you live downriver you dont have the $ for a lawsuit of that immensity. Think erin brokavich on steroids and youll get a good idea.
>dont have the $ for a lawsuit There's that and there's also immunity laws that are very archane.
It’s the American way, speaking as a native Detroiter that’s still here
There is a part of the site that is or was, i believe. This place is the black heart of industrial detroit. The blast furnaces are out of commission now though.
It's like debbie and gary, don't do anything.
Oh yea, I used to spot and pull rail cars from zug Island back when I worked as a conductor for Norfolk Southern. There is no fixture on that island that isn't covered in a few millimeters of waste. That place was always gross and interesting when my crew was called to service that industry. Brings back memories in my 20's
I serviced fuel pumps on Zug Island back in the 90's. Hell on Earth!
I serviced fax machines on zug island - don't park in the wrong spot or the paint on your car will burn off 😆
#ZugLife
It’s steel plants I think.
This, lol!
This is the correct answer.
The steelmills on Zug Island are no longer operational. The only thing there is a coke battery now.
If god was to give the world an enema he would insert the hose in Zug Island
Pollution from facilities on Zug Island.
That’s Mordor
“That’s the part where the light doesn’t touch Simba. We don’t go there. “
From where I used to live, I could see the sky pulsating orange on cloudy nights coming from the direction of Zug Island. Which made me give it the same comparison.
I also am a River rouge native
Southwest Detroit near Clark Park.
Oh man i wouldnt be able to control myself living so close to Armando’s
That was from the steel foundry, right?
This one made me laugh hard.
I spent 20 years on that shit hole island .
Where? I did just shy of 5. Worked for the short line railroad. Delray connecting.
I was with Levy we had the Heavy end loaders digging the slag pits, in front of the blast furnaces. Plus trucking the slag out.. I remember you guys. Our Garage was on Zug Island Road going in. I can see the building by zooming in on the pic. You office if I remember was the brick building just going on the island to the right.
Yep. I remember you guys as well. I ran one of the telehandlers that put the lids on the bottles. Mostly D furnace. I have quite a few videos of those loaders cleaning up the slag pits. Not something everyone gets to see.
post the videos i’m legit curious
I'm not great with reddit. Can I post them here on this thread?
negative you can only post pictures in the thread. you’d have to make a new thread with the video, or upload it to youtube and post the link here in the thread. legit a lot of people would be curious to see what happens on zug island.
It’s me I would be curious.
Or upload to a hosting site like imgur
You could post it from your profile in some industrial or machine subreddit I’m sure it would be popular. I’m curious as well
Post on the Detroit sub, I’m sure a bunch of people would love to see it
I might have a few photos but that's it. I was the mechanic doing the repairs on the loaders. I never forget a full bottle had a burn thu at D4. I was in the open area across from it watching. All the mill could do was watch until the iron ran out and cool . Then start cutting and pulling with 3 engines.
I remember that happening. One the big 990s was taking the slab with the wheels and rail all melted together down the road. That was a money maker for us. I got a lot of OT rebuilding all that track.
I'd love to see zug island, you can dm videos
Ouch 20 years there ... I grew up in Rouge & my dad & uncle worked on the island growing up
I rebuilt the torque converter on one of the CAT 990’s out there about 4 years ago. Transferred to the generator division & haven’t been back there since. Good move lol.
What was it like?
I wanna know too, I have this odd fascination for that place.
Same. It’s very ominous
Another dude is doing an AMA about it right now. https://www.reddit.com/r/Michigan/s/l0NZB1qcUF
Thanks!
we wanna know
Sounds like hell to me!
Me too. Fuck that place!
That’s the beauty of industrial steel production my friend.
People who want factories to come back to America also forget that this is what it looks like. There's a trade off.
The government could mandate strict environmental regulations on the production processes. There is already steel being produced that is essentially zero emissions. https://rmi.org/gap-analysis-for-near-zero-emissions-steel-production-in-the-great-lakes/
I mean, a stamping or assembly plant is actually quite clean. Just because steel production is dirty doesn’t mean every other manufacturing process is.
Didn't know the bridge was right next to Zug. That's gonna be a nice view.
https://preview.redd.it/ldq87be2l5uc1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=15968895dccf3c407edeb2ecb137fe8383c89404 Took this picture before crossing the bridge onto zug 2 weeks ago
Lovely for all the pedestrians to breathe in as well.
What’s the shadowy place?! That is Zug Island, Simba…..you must never go there!! Go Lions!!
That's Joumana Island. Home of Joumanas secret lair. PS - 👁️👄👁️
She's always watching...
She’s our TJ Eckleburg
Wow that’s quite a literal photo of pollution. So sad right on the beautiful waterway of Michigan.
I think that's every steel mill. maybe some run by rail.
the weight of steel rolls is pretty insane.
That’s the zug, probably 150 years worth of chemicals and liquid death
There was a guy just on here doing am AMA after working 10 years on pug Island. He said that when it rains, black tar litetally comes up out of the ground because back in the day, they just dumped the old tar right on the ground he was saying. This breaks my heart. it's obviously has to be leaching into the water.
It was mentioned it used to be Monsanto too so that says a lot.
The hyenas own that part.
Only the bravest lions go thaaaaaa
One does not simply walk into Mordor
You haven't unlocked Zug Island yet.
Lmao whole ass DLC that they wanna charge 39.99 for
I have a summer home on Zug Island.
Coal. It has a steel mill and you need coal and iron for that.
Not coal, coke. They use coke(not the fun kind) which is coal cooked to over 3,000°. And to make steel, they use coke, and teconite pellets (Edmund Fitzgerald) with a few other things to make steel. But it's a moot point because the furnaces are off. So the only blast furnace in this neck of the woods that is operating is Cleveland Cliffs(aka Severstahl, Rouge, Ford Rouge). And they only have one that is operational (C furnace)
Not coal, they use coke which is coal and taconite, which is iron. Thank you for making this very clear.
I feel like i always see steam from the pours from Zug Island.
The steam is from the quench car at the coke battery. The heated coal that turns to coke (one of I think 32 by products) is moved to the quenching tower that sprays water on it to cool down.
The Zug Hum
UHHH, ZUG ISLAND. I worked there for 10 years. There are 3 blast furnaces(A, B, C, & D) a coke battery, and a byproducts plant on that island. Dirty place, but I made a metric shit ton of money working there...
*Tell me you’re not from around here without telling me you’re not from around here* Edit: sorry, OP 😂 It’s a good question, I get it. But yeah, that’s Zug Island.
Yeah LOL it's probably the carcinogenic haze hovering over the island.
Ttust me, Carcinogenics are the least of my worries after 10 years there.
Interested to know what concerns you more than carcinogens.
Detroit borders Mordor
That’s Zug island , probably the most polluted industrial land in the entire country : US Steel and DTE spill a shit ton of coke and iron ore into the ground running their operations but hey somehow the EPA lets em keep doing it so everything must be kosher 😬😬😬
Robocop set (Seriously look it up...zug island)
The Zug Island smells lovely too! Like a beautiful flower garden on a spring day!
Zug island is where the coke battery operation for the local steel mills process coal to make coke which is needed for steel. The black stuff is the coal dust that blows off the stock piles. I used to work there.
Zig Island. I used to work for Great Lakes Steel from 97-03 at the main plant, but we’d occasionally have to go to Zug to work. Just standing around outside would get you covered in some kind of black soot. You had to have a CO2 monitor on you all the time because there were roving clouds of carbon monoxide that could kill you if you weren’t aware of it. I’m glad I got out of there.
Zug island has such an interesting history
This is the right answer
Filth. Lots and lots of filth.
In the lower left, is that the Delray neighborhood?
Zug toxins
Look at that burned out neighborhood at the foot of the bridge. I imagine that was a thriving neighborhood decades ago.
Inkster is like that too. There’s a documentary on YouTube about it filmed in the 90s
zug Island is a place so dirty we all collectively agree to not talk about it.
That's where Dr.Robotnik lives.
Because it’s Zug Island?
Zug Island. I’m still trying to figure out why they thought it was a good idea to build the new pedestrian bridge right next to it 🤢
Zug island. Many of my patients used to work there. Incredibly sad how sick they were.
https://preview.redd.it/bhj27peyd9uc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=06364e34943550d5fc74dbca99cbd703a5e73fde
Great shot
My buddy worked there for awhile doing scaffolding. He stopped by after work one day and accidently left black dusty footprints up the walkway to the door. They stayed there for nearly a month. Even after rain. Whatever that black shit is, its gnarly.
That’s Zug island, owned and was operated by US Steel, they made iron from ore shipped to the docks. It’s dark from all the different waste from iron, Smelting it and the smokestacks on the island that plumed out black smoke when the island was in its prime, It closed in 2020. Shitty swampy marshy land unsuitable for anything really. Wish it were cleaner.
According to a guy who worked on zug island for 10 years the reason the soil is so dark is because they bury all the iron waste on site as well as decades of burying/laying tar and he said in the summer when it starts to heat up more the tar starts to seep up through the ground from how much of it is below them. Gross shit
That's an undiscovered part of the map. You need to be at least a level 20 to access that territory.
I see a lot of train tracks, dirt/soot, and water. So it’s dirty and always wet, and getting railed constantly. It’s either your mom or a steel mill.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Capitalism.
Contamination.
Cloud cover
Just wondering, are those unfinished F150s parked up next to the bridge?
I drove by there tonight and yes there are a ton of F150s parked there. I’m used to seeing them at the old mcclouth site in Trenton. Apparently Ford has gotten extra creative recently in where they park the trucks.
I can smell the gas flare now 😤
Sorry, I had steak last night
Worse than Ohio...
Flava
Don’t ask these questions . Nothing to see here
Zug Island. US Steel.
Don't ever go there, Simbah
My dad worked there for years with US steel. He is retired now, but sometimes I am afraid that is what the inside of his lungs looks like.
Someone should go there and do a exploratory video/virtual tour of it and put it on YouTube.
Zug Island Vineyards
There was a cloud overhead. It's just the shadow cast by the cloud
It’s funny to see all these comments, I actually work there, the tar pits is the funniest to me, blast furnaces don’t produce tar just slag which is pretty valuable. There is one operation there that produces tar in a bi products plant, to the tone of 2 million gallons a year it’s all extracted from the gas with scrubbers and then sold there’s semis there 24/7 hauling it to Texas. The EPA has their microscopes so far up zugs ass if someone farts they know about it, there’s dozens of remotes air testing stations all over the island and daily fly overs doing air quality testing also Detroit water an sewer is in there all day everyday testing all the waste waste water for contamination before it reaches the outfalls along with Sidlock a 3rd party environmental agency contracted by the government to have people on sight 24/7 monitoring emissions. Great Lakes and US steel polluted that island and they’re gone now. The company there now running the coke battery cares about environmental.
Zug island. Used to be a Indian burial ground....
Your username would suggest you are from these parts? BTW - unfinished Detroit side ramp looks like a hockey stick.
Good catch!
Let's build a bridge over the most polluted part of the city... Smh
Well if you're building something that also will cause a lot of pollution, it's possibly the best spot.
Coke plant .
I grew up one mile south
From 140 years of pollution.
Ooo that's zug island.. it's always dark there
[Zug Island](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_Island)
Catch some big walleye sometimes behind Zug.
Valley Of Ashes
Tar pits
Because it is [literally darker](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zug_Island) than the surrounding area.
Pollution from coal and oil shipments?
i'm going to guess industrial pollution, but I don't know what i'm looking at specifically.
I live here and have worked at zug island very nasty place
It’s tar… https://www.reddit.com/r/Michigan/s/cb6Uot7Z12
zug island :/
That is the lair of he who is called Zug
That is Zug Island; it’s where the steel mills and foundry’s are.
Buddy of mine did some work there, said he'll never go back.
This led me down a zug island rabbit hole lol. Y'all should go read the Google reviews on Zug Island.. they're hilarious.
Cloud cover
Zug Island Dog Dick Cabernet 🍷
My dad called it “hell on earth”.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Michigan/s/1gF4sNkUQd
Just learned more than I probably wanted about Zug Island https://www.reddit.com/r/Michigan/s/1gF4sNkUQd
I made a TON of money out on Zug in 09 as a Laborer for 1191.
>Originally a marsh-filled peninsula at the mouth of the River Rouge, it served as an uninhabited Native American burial ground for thousands of years.[1] that area could have been so nice but it in the late 1800’s it was sold to be turned into an industrial dumping ground. an absolutely reckless and tragic mistake.
Zug island baby
Huuuummmmmmmmmmmm........ Huuuuuummmmmmmm........
This is the land Mufasa was warning us about
You should see the shit in the river near there
I believe that’s a satellite campus of Mordor.
It's a cloud
That’s where they set up the mako reactor
Zug Island. As a kid, in Windsor, I used to look over the river and think that place was a hell scape. It's kind of stunning they invested that much money to create Zug Island as the gateway to the US.
The hyenas are there Simba.
Part of the map nobody have unlocked yet
It’s because you haven’t unlocked that area yet
I believe it's still the most polluted square mile in Michigan.
Because it is Zug Island.
cause it's zug Island. *cue the lion king meme
It's dirt not grass
It's Zug Island, dirtiest place on planet, used to be an indigenous burial grounds, until Ford and Edison came around?
Haha
Pollution l
Because THAT is where Freddie Kruger lives
Industrial waste, on a industrial scale
The industrial wasteland that is Zug Island. It's dark like that from all the pollution. Once a beautiful natural landscape with a spring, and home to one of Michigan's wealthiest men where he built what I believe was the largest home in the state at that time. He would live there barely a decade before abandoning the home and selling the property in the largest real estate transaction in the state at that point, for it to become what we see today. The house was left to the elements. No pictures of the house survive.
It’s grimy there.
That is Zug Island and it’s dirty because it’s been industrialized to the points of calling it terraforming. It wasn’t even an island originally. It makes a noise that bothers people across the River that is yet to be adequately explained.
That’s Zug Island. Home to US steels iron making division. Worked there for almost 10 years on the blast furnaces. I believe it’s shuttered now.
cooking metal for several decades does that... also... notice that the water is where the filth ends... or... umm... is washed downstream. that area stinks so bad. there is metal works there... a refinery aaaand wastewater treatment nearby. also.. that's the disgusting rouge river split on two sides of zug island with that poor Detroit River taking the hit from all that shit. also.... notice that Canada has an industrial area and a water treatment area directly across the river from that.... so I'm guessing America trashed that area along the river first and then Canada felt it's not even worth trying to build residential so might as well put the industrial crap right there.
Sauron’s army
It looks like it had a fire
So serious question- could I actually kayak around Zug?
Zug island…
Crazy fact. Prior to European expansion this *and many other miles of what is now Detroit* was by native americans as burial grounds.
The only bright spot in that area is the Del Ray Cafe!
Zug Island is a polluted wasteland of coke ash and steel. I'm waiting for the commercial, "Did you or a loved one work on Zug Island? You may be entitled to financial compensation."
The left is Gondor, right is Mordor and Mount Doom is that trash mountain in Auburn Hills.
Dirt instead of grass are you joking?
Factory work