* Michael Hawthorne at the Chicago Tribune…
Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration is facing a federal environmental justice investigation after approving a new scrap shredder in a low-income, predominantly Latino neighborhood on Chicago’s Southeast Side.
The probe announced Monday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency comes amid a separate-but-related investigation of Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration.
Civil rights divisions at the EPA and the Department of Housing and Urban Development are digging into why the state and city cleared Reserve Management Group to build a shredder in the East Side neighborhood after the Ohio-based company agreed to close a similar operation in Lincoln Park, a wealthy, largely white neighborhood on the city’s North Side.
Lawyers for Southeast Side community groups petitioned for federal intervention, accusing city agencies and the Illinois EPA of colluding with developers to concentrate polluting industries in a corner of the city where residential yards already are contaminated by heavy metals and toxic chemicals.
* Also from Mike…
As President Joe Biden pushes the nation toward 100% carbon-free electricity to combat climate change, a coal-fired power plant in southern Illinois is one of the biggest roadblocks.
The Prairie State Generating Station is among the top 10 industrial sources of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the United States, emitting as much as 2 million cars combined every year.
Less than a decade old, the massive electric generation plant is the brainchild of Peabody Energy, a St. Louis-based coal company that for years denied it contributes to global surges of extreme heat, wildfires, drought, flooding and rising seas.
Most of the other big U.S. coal plants still operating are at least 40 years old. They are either past or close to the end of their expected life spans. But Prairie State could keep churning out climate-changing pollution for another half-century — decades past Biden’s 2035 deadline to purge fossil fuels from the power sector, according to a new analysis published in the journal Science.
- Anonymous - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 1:20 pm:
Mostly municipal utilities signed contracts with the coal plant. For their efforts they have both dirty power and way above market prices.
- muon - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 1:45 pm:
Prairie state was marketed to municipalities to put together its financing a decade and a half ago. One pitch was the use of latest technologies to remove sulfur and other heavy mineral pollutants that made Illinois coal hard to use at that time. The other pitch was that plant was built across the street from a new mine to help control transportation costs. Over two hundred communities across the Midwest bought in.
Three things were unanticipated back in the mid-2000’s as the plant was marketed. One was the construction cost overruns. Another was the boom in natural gas production that would cut its price by 2/3 or more making gas plants far more competitive in the power market. The final item was federal action on carbon dioxide pollution which was one pollutant the plant did not mitigate in its design.
- dbk - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 1:46 pm:
“Environmental groups pushed legislation in 2019 intended to combat environmental racism but the bill stalled in committee.”
[https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/environment/ct-general-iron-chicago-state-allows-move-20200625-n7×5mbv7fnfxtdqoxyp5xpr3o4-story.html]
This might be a bill whose history is worth exploring. Basically, the Pritzker Administration is saying “Make us shut it down, legally.”
- dbk - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 1:48 pm:
Addendum: I’d just like to add that it’s pretty disheartening that when I posted my first response, all of 1 persons had commented.
- Visa - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 2:14 pm:
The municipalities that signed up for ownership shares of Prairie State were fully aware of the risk. There was an active campaign to inform them by the environmental community and the natural gas risk was fully articulated (prices could go up or down). They all knew but they bought Peabody’s line that nat gas could only go up. Ooops (hat tip to Rick Perry)
- DuPage - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 2:33 pm:
A few things I heard about the shredder company new location.
1. They are re-locating the company, but are not going to use the old shredding equipment
2. The new equipment is supposedly very clean and quiet state of the art.
3. They are moving to an industrial zoned area to property they already own.
4. They have already passed every EPA regulation.
5. They are working with scrap metal, not with sanitizing hospital equipment with super toxic fumes.
More information is needed, but if the items mentioned are correct, they should be allowed to proceed.
- McKinleyBob - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 2:42 pm:
@DuPage
Interesting how you have provided an industry based account of GI-III’s operation, down to falsehoods about equipment used, and also refer to suburban based Sterigenics to indicate that was an actual issue of concern.
So what you heard (or didnt look up) from communities of color is not worth repeating, but when Republican leaning residents of DuPage have a pollution problem of course we need to be aggressive?
This whole Sterigenics thing is becoming a modern hallmark of environmental racism, and especially since the Willowbrook based group appears to have retired from environmental work after one campaign that lasted about 12 months.
- Lurker - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 2:42 pm:
Do not confuse a lack of comments with a lack of interest as they are not always correlated. For example, I know many of us care deeply about Rich’s covid updates but there is no reason to comment further due to the completeness of the information.
- Ferris Wheeler - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 3:05 pm:
Didn’t the company admit this was environmental racism, but they were being forced by the city?
- DuPage - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 3:55 pm:
@- McKinleyBob - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 2:42 pm:
@DuPage
Interesting how you have provided an industry based account of GI-III’s operation, down to falsehoods about equipment used….===
I specifically said “more information is needed”. If you have more information on the details of the company and the new equipment, please give us more details.
- McKinleyBob - Tuesday, Jan 26, 21 @ 5:47 pm:
@DuPage
It’s fairly simple to find more information using a search engine. I’d suggest first using a search engine with a query like ‘general iron Chicago move,’ then reading a few of the dozen or so well researched articles that have multiple perspectives.
In fact, typing that exact term into google produced this within micro-seconds:
‘Control equipment will move from the North Side in early 2021 as General Iron stops accepting scrap metal in Lincoln Park after December 31.’
Not sure why you would ask me to educate you on the subject when so much information is available on the topic from respected professionals. If you need more information, go get it.
- Candy Dogood - Wednesday, Jan 27, 21 @ 12:22 am:
Oh boy. This has all of the trappings of an investigation that will turn into yet another comment from me warning of the predictable outcome of having failed to fire Raunerites and to more broadly staff agencies with people who believe in Governor Pritzker’s vision.