Detroit taxpayers will likely pay for the “dirty dirt” cleanup at demolition sites, city lawyer says, with 195 lots ranked most urgent

DETROIT — Detroiters will probably end up paying to dig up and replace contaminated dirt at hundreds of demolition sites, the city’s top lawyer told the City Council on Friday.

Corporation Counsel Conrad Mallett said the contractor the city blames for the bad fill, the now-closed Gayanga Co., is unlikely to have the money to cover the bill. Unless state or federal grants come through, the cost will most likely land on city taxpayers, he said after a special council session, BridgeDetroit reported.

“I don’t have good news,” Mallett told council members. “I think that the Gayanga organization, if not bankrupt, soon will be.” He said the city’s environmental insurer is also “resisting, forcefully,” responsibility for the program.

The 195 lots at the top of the list

Most of the sites in question belong to the Detroit Land Bank Authority. Of the publicly owned sites tested so far, 500 have failed safety standards and 380 have not yet been dug out, said Tim Palazzolo, director of the city’s Construction & Demolition Department.

Palazzolo said 195 of those sites present an “elevated risk,” because the contamination could evaporate, rise through the soil and, over time, reach the air in nearby buildings. Those lots get fixed first. He put that work at about $6.7 million, or roughly $34,554 a property. The city expects the remaining contaminated sites to cost about $12 million in all, and it has split the work into three priority tiers. The first two are scheduled to be done by 2029.

The city set aside $15 million of blight money for testing and cleanup in late 2025, and $8.4 million of it is left, Palazzolo said. He said that pot is used for nothing else. Counting testing and replacement, the city says its total damages are approaching $20 million.

Who is responsible

The city has accused Detroit-based Gayanga and its owner, Brian McKinney, of backfilling demolition holes with contaminated dirt, much of it from a Milford site called Iron Horse. Gayanga won tens of millions of dollars in city demolition contracts starting in 2018, and the city’s Office of the Inspector General suspended the company and McKinney last fall. McKinney announced in May that the company was shutting down and suing the city for defamation. Mallett said the city has not yet served McKinney with legal action of its own.

Investigations by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy and the FBI’s Detroit office are ongoing, Mallett said. He said the city has found no evidence that the problem went beyond Gayanga, and that past gaps in contractor paperwork “have been corrected.”

Council Member Angela Whitfield-Calloway pressed the city to declare a public health emergency, saying orange fencing around the lots is not keeping dirt from blowing onto sidewalks and nearby property. Chief Public Health Officer Ali Abazeed said the department is treating the issue urgently but that “contamination does not always equal exposure.”

Private lots and what changes

The city is also trying to test 120 privately owned parcels. Fifty owners have agreed, seven have refused and 63 have not answered. If those owners don’t respond by spring, the city plans to seek administrative warrants, though Mallett said the city would move sooner if health officials see a risk.

Demolition crews now take backfill only from seven inspected pits in Milford, Pinckney, Washington Township, Petersburg, Milan and Maybee, down from 14 sources, and the soil is tested before it leaves each site. Residents can check a site’s status on the city’s fill-material testing page or contact demo-info@detroitmi.gov or 313-224-4737.

Sources:
BridgeDetroit, “Detroiters likely to bear cost of ‘dirty dirt’ fix, Mallett says,” Oct. 30, 2026 (special council session; Mallett, Palazzolo, Whitfield-Calloway and Abazeed remarks; site counts, costs, budget, private parcels, new fill sources), https://www.bridgedetroit.com/detroiters-cover-cost-dirty-dirt-site-remediation/
City of Detroit, Construction & Demolition Department, fill material test results from demolition sites, https://detroitmi.gov/departments/construction-and-demolition-department/2025-fill-material-test-results-demolition-sites
Photo: WMrapids, “Coleman A. Young Municipal Center 2025.jpg,” Wikimedia Commons, CC0, color-adjusted, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coleman_A._Young_Municipal_Center_2025.jpg

Detroit

Tags: Detroit · Demolition · Contaminated Soil · Detroit City Council · Gayanga · Taxpayers