City officials agreed Friday to conduct an environmental justice assessment of the proposed shredding operation before issuing the final permit the facility needs to start operating.
EPA
In the first Biden administration rule aimed at combating climate change, the Environmental Protection Agency is proposing to phase down production and use of hydrofluorocarbons, highly potent greenhouse gases commonly used in refrigerators and air conditioners.
Convening outside a church just down the street from Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s North Side home, residents of the Southeast Side voiced their opposition to a metal shredding and recycling operation in their neighborhood.
The EPA has completed cleanup of the Hegewisch Little League Field after discovering alarming levels of lead and arsenic in the soil.
Opponents of the Lincoln Park metal shredder want General Iron closed during the COVID-19 pandemic, but if the facility checks all the right boxes, it could eventually restart operations, officials said.
After finding arsenic and lead in the soil at the Hegewisch Little League Field, the EPA tested a second a ball diamond in the neighborhood and found manganese. “We fight for every breath we take here,” said one resident.
The EPA began cleaning up the site this week, stating the hazardous substances found in the soil posed an “imminent and substantial endangerment” to “public health, welfare, and the environment.”
Five weeks after two explosions rattled General Iron, city officials allowed the North Side metal recycler to partially reopen June 24 — but its shredding facility remains shut down as investigations continue into the May 18 blasts.
Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza is joining the chorus of 10th Ward neighbors calling for the Illinois EPA to delay consideration of General Iron’s permit to move from Lincoln Park to the Southeast Side.
Neighbors unanimously spoke out Thursday against General Iron’s application for a permit to move its Lincoln Park metal shredding operation to the Southeast Side, but questioned whether their concerns would even count.
The Illinois EPA will hold a virtual hearing Thursday to determine whether it should issue a permit allowing General Iron to operate on the city's Southeast Side.
Environmental organizations have petitioned the EPA to establish rules requiring companies to minimally disclose to the public that they’ve stopped monitoring and reporting pollution during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The EPA is relaxing enforcement of “environmental legal obligations” during the coronavirus pandemic, and activists are seething.
Southwest Side residents are mobilizing to pump the brakes on MAT Asphalt’s application for a 10-year permit from the Illinois EPA, and say they don’t trust the agency to put people over profit.
In 2003, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency had 1,265 employees. By 2018, that number had fallen to 639, according to a new report that a former IEPA director describes as “both a wake-up call and call to action.”
A 67-acre Southeast Side site served as a dumping ground for Republic Steel for nearly 30 years. Inspection records show the property is contaminated with lead, cyanide, mercury and other potentially harmful pollutants.
