MEDIA ADVISORY AND DAYBOOK ITEM FOR THURSDAY, FEB. 23, 2023
Contact:
Carlos Enriquez, CEJN, cenriquez@chicagoejn.org, 815-342-5717
Ivan Moreno, NRDC, imoreno@nrdc.org, 773-799-6455
Residents, Alders Call For Action After Reports Show City Failed to Protect Neighborhoods from Industrial Pollution
THURSDAY, Environmental Justice advocates will be joined by Alderwoman Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd Ward) to call for changes, reform and oversight in the wake of two reports charging that the City of Chicago fails to protect residents from industrial pollution.
The demands for action follow the recent release of a report by the McKinley Park-based organization Neighbors for Environmental Justice, which reveals a significant reduction in enforcement by the city, loopholes used by toxic industrial facilities to avoid the law, and written evidence that the Dept of Public Health intentionally limits accountability for repeated violations.
These findings are underlined by the newly published investigation of the Hilco implosion at the former Crawford coal plant, in which the Office of the Inspector General found the city acted with "willful bureaucratic negligence." No companies involved were cited for air pollution or required to admit liability for their actions.
When: Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023, at 10:00a.m. Central Time
Where: via zoom:
Stream: http://fb.com/N4EJchicago/live
Who:
Moderator, Edith Tovar, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization
Kim Wasserman, Executive Director of Little Village Environmental Justice Organization
Anthony Moser, Board President of Neighbors For Environmental Justice
Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, 33rd Ward Alderwoman
Cheryl Johnshon, Executive Director of People for Community Recovery
Olga Bautista, Executive Director of Southeast Environmental Task Force
Wesley Epplin, Policy Director at Health & Medicine Policy Research Group
Background:
Summary of the Neighbors for Environmental Justice Report: Ineffective By Choice
The City of Chicago does not enforce environmental laws in any way that could seriously disrupt the operation of businesses that violate them.
This report examines how the city enforces environmental laws by analyzing two decades of previously unpublished data from the Department of Administrative Hearings (DAH). City inspection reports, settlement agreements, and emails put the data in context, showing what the city does and how they do it.
Here is what we found: the Dept of Environment was dismantled, and the number of violations issued dropped dramatically. Enforcement is mostly focused on small offenses. Consequences for pollution by industrial facilities are slow, few, and mild. Citations for air pollution are rarely issued and frequently dropped. Escalating fines introduced in 2021 remain unused, as do many of the powers granted by the municipal code. CDPH deliberately does not issue citations to repeat violators, and some tickets written by inspectors are intentionally not forwarded for prosecution; both practices were described as "legal strategy" by Asst. Comm. Dave Graham, who the OIG recommended be fired for negligence and incompetence for his role in the Hilco implosion.
Read the rest of the report
(PNG and SVG exports of charts here, credit Neighbors For Environmental Justice)
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