CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Activists who have been fighting the relocation of a metal shredding plant in their Southeast Side neighborhood said they're cautiously optimistic that they are winning their battle.
Environmental activists said it took a hunger strike to have their concerns heard about the plans for a car-shredding operation on the Southeast Side. And now that the U.S. EPA has asked for a new study of the environmental impact and the process, Olga Bautista, with the Southeast Environmental Council said her group and others will be watching the Lightfoot Administration carefully.
"We expect that this next leg of this fight that we continue to be apart of that process, because the decision is going to impact this community the most, so then we need to be at the table," she said.
Mayor Lightfoot said she supports the U.S. EPA’s desire to know how the expansion of the so-called General Iron operations on the Southeast Side will affect a neighborhood already facing environmental concerns.
"They expressed some concerns about the way in which this and other environmental issues were vetted under the previous administration, and those conversations led to the letter we received on Friday asking us to conduct a more extensive environmental analysis and we are going to do that," Lightfoot said.
But, Reverend William Barber, co-founder of the Poor People’s campaign, sad the fight against the project isn’t over, because it’s a matter of life and death.
"You know, police brutality is not the only form of death for black folks, brown folks, indigenous people; environmental injustice kills," he said.
They don’t just want the permit delayed. They want it rejected.
Northwestern University Law Professor Nancy Loeb said Mayor Lightfoot should have enough evidence to completely reject the permit for the Reserve Management Group facility even now.
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