CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- City officials promised they are conducting a “rigorous and comprehensive” study of pollution impacts of a proposed metal shredder on the Southeast Side though a public health expert is calling the process “haphazard” and “troublesome.”
“They scripted the whole thing,” Serap Erdal, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago, said in an interview referring to a town hall-style virtual meeting held by city officials Thursday night.
The meeting was part of a “health impact assessment” being conducted by the city in response to community pushback over the proposed car and scrap-metal shredding operation Southside Recycling, which is awaiting a decision on a final permit needed to operate at East 116th Street along the Calumet River. That decision is expected to be made by the Chicago Department of Public Health in January.
“Once completed, it will be the most rigorous and comprehensive study of a proposed industrial facility in Chicago to date,” health officials said in a statement after the meeting Thursday.
Formerly home to Chicago’s long-shuttered steelmakers, the Southeast Side is heavily industrial and some community members say they want the city to stop sending polluters to an area that already suffers from poor air quality. Southside Recycling is the relocated, rebranded and rebuilt operation formerly known as General Iron in Lincoln Park. The city’s role in moving the business is the subject of a federal civil rights investigation.
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“This is a big burden to expect us to deal with more pollution,” Donald Davis, a history teacher at George Washington High School, said during one breakout session at the meeting.
The town hall was billed as a chance for residents to provide opinions in small groups that were to be limited to only those with Southeast Side ZIP codes. Even journalists were initially told they would not be allowed into the breakout sessions. But some company representatives who do not live in the area were allowed to participate in the breakout sessions stirring debate with residents.
Participants in the small groups were first asked what potential benefits would the business bring to the community. Next, they were asked about potential “burdens.” Another question asked residents to share a life experience that may inform the permitting process and the final question asked for suggestions about possible city policy changes.
“People were asked to communicate their concerns and the first question was about the benefits,” Erdal said. “They are not really getting a free and authentic input into the process.”
Prior to the meeting, Erdal co-authored a 36-page critique to the city regarding the health impact assessment on behalf of environmental and community organizations.
The city’s analysis, so far, “falls woefully short in terms of both process and substance of satisfying even the most basic requirements” for such an assessment, the paper from Erdal said.
Specifically, Erdal said the city is still taking too narrow a view of the impact of adding another polluter in an area already experiencing a “cumulative burden” of health and environmental hazards. She also takes issue with the specific air quality data the city is evaluating with the help of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, saying that it’s limited in scope. The health assessment is being done after the top EPA official asked the city to conduct them.
The approach to the assessment “exacerbates” the “inequities in the city’s land use and environmental permitting processes,” the Erdal analysis found.
The meeting was the second of three planned. Another meeting is expected to take place next month.
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