COMMUNITY ORGANIZING
What’s Next for the Southeast Side?
PROVIDED BY OSCAR SANCHEZ
Hunger strikers reflect on their campaign’s success, but there is more work ahead in the fight for environmental justice.
BY MCKENZIE RICHMOND
M
ere days after the first anniversary of a monthlong hunger strike organized by community members of Chicago’s 10th Ward to protest General Iron’s relocation, the City of Chicago denied the operating permit for the scrap metal facility to operate in the area. Community organizers celebrated, but say this is not the end of their fight for environmental justice in the Southeast Side of Chicago and the city. According to one of the first residents to join the hunger strike, Breanna Bertacchi, the Southeast Side community is still slowly coming out of the shock phase of processing their victory after a “multi-year, high-stakes battle for which the majority of the time [they] felt ignored and underrepresented.”
Oscar Sanchez, who also joined the hunger strike with Bertacchi, said, “The anticipation and lack of hope we have with those in power made me believe and made us prepare to have an action at City Hall that same Friday, but instead, our Stop General Iron Campaign celebrated.” Had it been approved, the General Iron facility—now known as RMG/ Southside Recycling—would have joined close to 250 industrial sites in the Southeast Side, bringing with it a long history of citations and complaints. “We recognize that there are tangential battles in the city that are still needing to be addressed. MAT Asphalt in McKinley Park, among others,” Bertacchi said. “We are continuing to work with our environmental justice peers to address immediate needs. However, long-term sustained policy changes are required to shift this battle away from ongoing
‘emergencies’ that require so much labor and education on behalf of the communities impacted.” Some of the considered policies include a clean air ordinance, beta testing electric buses, as well as land remediation and various toxin removals, in order to overturn and regulate the environmental issues the 10th Ward has faced for decades. In 2013, Southeast Side residents reported petroleum coke, also known as “pet coke,” blowing through their neighborhood as a product of the large piles at nearby oil refineries. Reports were filed in 2015, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). More recently, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management proposed to repair a breakwater in Hammond, Indiana, which
will permanently impact four acres below the Ordinary High Water Mark of Lake Michigan, according to the proposal, potentially affecting water quality between Chicago and the HammondEast Chicago-Whiting area. Public commentary ends April 11. In May of last year, EPA administrator Michael Reagan sent a letter to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot urging the City of Chicago to delay the permitting process of a new General Iron facility in the Southeast Side to allow for an environmental justice study to take place in order to determine the impact that the new facility would have on the health of local residents. Later in the fall, the Chicago Department of Public Health announced that they had concluded a Health Impact Analysis (HIA) in partnership with the EPA, which conducted tests and gathered
APRIL 7, 2022 ¬ SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY 15
