The Koch Brothers at Work

Fabrizio Costantini for The New York Times — Petroleum coke, a waste byproduct of refining oil sands oil, is piling up along the Detroit River.

A Black Mound of Canadian Oil Waste Is Rising Over Detroit

By IAN AUSTEN, NYT
Published: May 17, 2013

WINDSOR, Ontario — Assumption Park gives residents of this city lovely views of the Ambassador Bridge and the Detroit skyline. Lately they’ve been treated to another sight: a three-story pile of petroleum coke covering an entire city block on the other side of the Detroit River.

Detroit’s ever-growing black mountain is the unloved, unwanted and long overlooked byproduct of Canada’s oil sands boom.

And no one knows quite what to do about it, except Koch Carbon, which owns it.

The company is controlled by Charles and David Koch, wealthy industrialists who back a number of conservative and libertarian causes including activist groups that challenge the science behind climate change. The company sells the high-sulfur, high-carbon waste, usually overseas, where it is burned as fuel.

(More here.)