Scrapyard Cited For Years Of Fires, Explosions Booted From Lincoln Park; Won't Be Going To Southeast

[hatrack]

Under pressure from community organizers and their powerful ally, the Biden administration, the city of Chicago has scrapped an effort by the owners of a metal scrapyard to relocate the operation from a wealthy White part of town to a working-class Mexican American area. The city’s Department of Public Health announced Friday that a permit application that would have allowed Reserve Management Group (RMG) to operate in Southeast Chicago has been denied.

In its announcement, the department sided with activists and protesters who said that adding a scrapyard to the Southeast Side, which is already teeming with heavy-industry pollution, would be unacceptable. A health impact assessment conducted in the months leading to the decision found that communities there already “rank among the highest in Chicago for vulnerability to air pollution, based on underlying health and social conditions.” The Southeast’s adult population has higher rates of chronic conditions such as coronary heart disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease than in the city overall.

EDIT

In a statement, RMG said it built “the most environmentally conscious metal recycling facility in the country, but politicians and government officials have ignored the facts and instead were cowed by persistent false narratives and misinformation aimed at demonizing our business.” The company called the protesters “a small but vocal opposition that long ago made clear they would unconditionally oppose this facility, facts and science be damned.”

EDIT

Peggy Salazar, the outgoing leader of the Southeast Environmental Task Force, said the company’s negotiations with the city to relocate a metal recycling operation that was cited for multiple explosions and fires were an insult. “It’s about the fact that you can take something from a community where it’s not wanted, for all the reasons it’s not wanted there, and build [it] here,” Salazar said in July. “We don’t have a voice about that, but they do. That’s why it’s insulting … and that’s why we’re opposed to it.” The old scrapyard, which was cited numerous times for environmental violations when it operated as General Iron in the wealthy Lincoln Park section of North Chicago, established a precedent in the health department’s deliberations.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/02/18/with-help-biden-administration-activists-defeat-potential-pollution-site-chicago/

[mopinko]

1. it's a start.

but at the same time- scrap metal is big business here. always considered the scavengers a good thing. they scoop up tons and tons of scrap metal every day. clearly it can all be done better. but the article doesnt mention how much was recycled in this facility. what happens to that?

def a case of- white people coming, so the gritty must go. there's a huge plan for a former steel plant on the same island, goose island, in the chgo river. they're still arguing about what, exactly, will go there, but if developers have their way, it'll be as much high end housing as they can cram in.

i feel like there's no good answer here. move it out to the hinterlands, and every overloaded pickup truck has to make a round trip of 50 miles or more? in their beat up old trucks?
and a lot of people scraping by doing this job arent gonna make money.

hard choices.