Risk Is in the Air BY ALEJANDRO REYES
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nce immortalized in Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel The Jungle, the meatpacking factories that made Chicago “hog butcher for the world” and gave Back of the Yards its name left the city nearly fifty years ago. But the scent of industry still lingers. “There’s a saying in Back of the Yards,” says Billy Drew, cofounder of Neighbors for Environmental Justice. “‘It’s not just a place. It’s a smell.’” Though the Union Stockyards closed in 1971, the working-class Southwest Side neighborhood is flanked by railyards to the east and south, where idling trains emit diesel exhaust fumes that increase the likelihood of cancer by a factor of ten, according to the Chicago Reporter. “For people who have grown up here, it’s part of the environment, being surrounded by industrial pollution,” Drew says. In neighboring McKinley Park, complaints of nausea, headaches, and asthma have increased following the construction of the MAT Asphalt plant in 2018. Many residents have reported seeing trucks carrying asphalt without tarps, allowing dust to radiate into the air. MAT maintains that the plant is environmentally friendly and operates well under the legal limits for carbon dioxide and particulate matter (hazardous dust particles). Disputing this account are the residents, who have lodged 160 complaints of odor and visible smoke, among other violations, according to WTTW. For people who live in the shadow of industrial pollution, there is no worse time for a pandemic. On March 20, Governor J.B. Pritzker announced a stay-at-home order in Illinois due to the outbreak of COVID-19. Though the virus can besiege even the healthiest immune system, regardless of race or class, early reports show that communities of color in Chicago are disproportionately harmed. 4 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
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An analysis from WBEZ found that seventy percent of the eighty-six people confirmed to have died from COVID-19 in Chicago were Black, despite African Americans only making up twenty-nine percent of the city’s population. (Numbers for Latinx residents are still unclear, as it appears the medical examiner’s office may have counted many as “white.”) Experts in public health generally agree that your health isn’t just based on your genetics and personal choices. It’s also based on extenuating factors known as the “social determinants of health,” which the World Health Organization defines as “conditions in which people are born, grow, work, live, and age, and the wider set of forces and systems shaping the conditions of daily life.”
“The pandemic is really just doubling down on these communities and causing additional harm, where folks were in public health emergencies already.” “Where you live has a huge influence on your overall health,” explains Dr. Susan Buchanan, clinical associate professor of
If you live in an area where the air quality is poor, your lungs are already going to be stressed, so you may be at higher risk of COVID-19
BY TAYLOR MOORE
environmental and occupational health sciences at the UIC School of Public Health. “And not just in terms of the environment— the air you breathe—but also in terms of the other stressors going on in the area where you live, including food deserts, violence, lack of decent sanitation, and lack of sufficient housing.” In Chicago, African Americans and Latinos experience greater rates of poverty and live in neighborhoods that receive a fraction of the investment that majoritywhite neighborhoods do. They are also far more likely to live in close proximity to industrial pollution and more likely to have asthma, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health. A difference in ZIP code can result in a life expectancy difference as large as thirty years. All of these factors contribute to higher rates of asthma, obesity, diabetes, stroke, depression, cardiovascular disease, and other ailments, Buchanan says. And since COVID-19 is a respiratory disease that causes pneumonia, existing pollution can aggravate the situation. “If you live in an area where the air quality is poor, your lungs are already going to be stressed, so you may be at higher risk of COVID-19.” For people breathing polluted air, respiratory illnesses can be even more deadly. In 2003, Chinese patients with SARS, a similar species of coronavirus, were twice as likely to die from the disease if they lived in an area with high air pollution, according to a study published in the journal Environmental Health. A preliminary study from statisticians affiliated with Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health that is still undergoing peer review found that, as of April 4, a small increase in particulate pollution is associated with a fifteen percent higher death rate from COVID-19. Juliana Pino, policy director for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, has noticed the health effects
of industrial pollution in the majorityLatinx community—and she sees the issues as intertwined. On March 11, Pino tweeted, “#coronavirus and #COVID19 are an #environmentaljustice issue. Where do you think thousands of elders with compromised immune systems, respiratory and heart diseases, and other so-called ‘comorbidities’ caused by pollution + racism w ‘higher risk’ live?” Known for helping shut down the Crawford and Fisk coal plants in 2012, LVEJO has quickly shifted its organizing priorities to COVID-19 education and rapid-response work, such as checking on seniors, offering transportation to medical appointments, and compiling public health resources in both Spanish and English. On April 11, Hilco Redevelopment Partners demolished a smokestack at the defunct Crawford Power Generating Station in Little Village, sending billowing clouds of coal dust—nearly a hundred years’ worth— into a neighborhood already experiencing the brunt of pollution-induced illness. “Demolition of large structures near residences needs to be carried out with the utmost of care to control dust emissions. Dust from older facilities may contain many harmful substances including lead, mercury, PCBs and other carcinogenic chemicals,” Buchanan says. Hilco denies that lead and asbestos were spread in the demolition, but did not provide evidence, according to Block Club. Residents say they weren’t given proper notice by Hilco or 22nd Ward Alderman Mike Rodriguez of the demolition, which is expected to pave the way for a 1.2-millionsquare-foot Target warehouse and distribution facility that will bring dozens of diesel trucks a day into the neighborhood. As a result, LVEJO has demanded that the city stop the ongoing demolition of the plant, and that the Cook County Assessor's Office rescind the $19.7 million tax break
