Steelworkers Park at the former U.S. Steel South Works on Chicago’s Southeast Side.
Steelworkers Park is shown.
Steelworkers Park is shown.
Community Groups are suing to block a dredge waste dump on Chicago's southeast Lake Michigan lakefront, not far from the state line.
The Alliance of the Southeast and Friends of the Parks filed a lawsuit aiming to stop the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers from building a vertical dumpsite for material dredged out of the Calumet River. It would be built on 45 acres of lakefront between Steelworkers Park where U.S. Steel South Works used to be and Calumet Park bordering Hammond.
Environmental Law & Policy Center public interest attorneys represented the community groups, which said the land was long promised to be a lakefront park.
“We are tired of being the dumping ground for toxic materials in the city. The Army Corps only considered sites in the 10th Ward, and we already had to fight against having a second site," said Alliance of the Southeast Executive Director Amalia NietoGomez. "Chicago’s Southeast Side is already overburdened, and we don’t need an expansion to add more toxic dredgings from the river right next to Calumet Park, where families gather, do sports, have picnics and play in the water. We are concerned about the pollution from the Confined Disposal Facility on our health, and our drinking water.”
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The proposed dump site was submerged until 1984 when the corps built an in-water confined disposal facility. There was an agreement to turn it over to the Chicago Park District to build a new park at the mouth of the Calumet River once it was full, according to the lawsuit.
The proposed waste site would rise 25 feet in the air. Sediment from the dredged material includes mercury, PCBs, arsenic, barium, cadmium, manganese, chromium, copper, lead and other contaminants, the lawsuit said.
The community groups are concerned it will pose health risks to the once heavily industrial Southeast Side that's "already overburdened with exposure to environmental pollutants." They ask for more environmentally friendly options to be explored.
“The Army Corps of Engineers is failing to live up to its promise to the Illinois legislature and the community that the CDF site would already be restored into a public park along the lakeshore for people’s use and enjoyment," said Environmental Law & Policy Center Executive Director Howard Learner. "The Corps’ plans to continue dumping dredge wastes on top of the CDF fail to comply with the agency’s legal obligations to take a hard look at the environmental consequences and fully and fairly analyze better environmental alternatives. Moreover, the Corps’ actions here are at odds with the Biden administration’s environmental justice commitments.”
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