Wednesday, May 13, 2009
News / Clout City Soil and rubble, toil and trouble
Posted by Mick Dumke on 05.13.09 at 07:34 AM
Virginia Rugai, chair of the City Council’s energy and environment committee, wanted to clarify an important point for the record Tuesday before aldermen began reviewing a proposal to allow the reuse of soil and rubble dug up in city construction projects.
While it was true the measure had been tabled three times before, and while it was true that its vehement opponents on all sides of the political spectrum had said all sorts of bad things about it (dubbing it “the toxic dirt ordinance”), and while it was true that some of those opponents had bombarded members of the committee with automated phone calls, Rugai insisted that delays in passing the proposal had nothing to do with political pressure, as a certain unnamed reporter had written.
Rugai said that last month she had decided on her accord that the plan needed a fourth round of revisions in order to satisfy her colleagues and make sure community leaders across Chicago wouldn’t be freaked out or angry that the council had passed something that critics dubbed—quite incorrectly, mind you—“the toxic dirt ordinance.”
“I had decided to hold this long before our offices received hundreds of robocalls using inflammatory language,” she declared. “I’d asked for revisions long before those calls came. I just wanted to make a note of that.”
With the note made, Rugai and other committee members were able to proceed with the business at hand: making sure the proposal had finally been rewritten in such a way that aldermen wouldn’t be blamed if people in their wards ever got pissed off about it again.
After all, the aldermen didn’t need to be persuaded that the plan, crafted and pushed by the Daley administration, had lots of advantages. It would cut down on the emissions of trucks that now have to take construction-generated dirt to landfills downstate, and on trucks that bring replacement dirt from rural areas to the city. It would preserve landfill space. It would save money.
Unfortunately, after generations of heavy industrial activity, Chicago's soil is almost always contaminated with something. Environmental officials say that doesn’t mean it’s dangerous to reuse, especially if it’s going to be piled under a new road or sewer line. And under this plan anything that would end up on the site of a school or park would undergo testing to make sure it met the strictest state pollution standards . . .
But what if people see that the city technically allows the reuse of soil that contains even tiny amounts of harmful chemicals? Will they understand that those trace amounts are “safe” according to federal and state guidelines? Or could this become campaign fodder, or simply the source of those more routine community uproars that are such a pain in the ass for aldermen?
Suzanne Malec-McKenna, commissioner of the city’s environment department, noted that the latest version of the ordinance ensures that aldermen have the chance to veto any particular plan to reuse soil or rubble in their wards--an addition made in response to concerns raised in earlier discussions of the ordinance. Playing the lawyer that he is, alderman Ed Burke insisted the language be stronger and more specific.
Just when it seemed that might do the trick, a representative for the Illinois EPA noted that there was a typo in the ordinance. It was no big deal—a number had to be changed so that the plan didn’t accidentally allow dangerous levels of arsenic in soil used in parks or school grounds.
Aldermen found this rather disconcerting.
“If we ever face an opponent and they find out that we allowed the transfer of arsenic into our wards, we are going to get it,” Burke said. “I want to know before soil with arsenic or perc is transferred into my ward. Can you imagine what would happen if a PTA or local park council got wind of this?”
Burke, of course, hasn't faced an opponent in 38 years, but he appeared genuinely indignant at the idea that dangerous chemicals exist, that some of his proposals to try to curtail them had never advanced in the City Council, and that any of this could stir up trouble on the home front. “Has anyone been through this with a fine-toothed comb?” he asked Malec-McKenna. “The devil really is in the details.”
She assured him that it had been combed repeatedly and reiterated that passing it was critical. “This has been a long process, but we think this type of investment of time is absolutely worth it. Other cities are watching us to see what we do on this issue.”
"You should also be willing to hear objections from aldermen," Burke informed her. He insisted on several more wording changes and a law department review of portions of the ordinance. Since she didn't want the matter held again, Malec-McKenna had no choice but to agree to everything he said.
Then Burke got up and left.
In his absence, the committee passed the measure on the condition that the administration add the changes he’d suggested. It will probably be approved by the full council Wednesday.
Comments (11)
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another sad day for th City of Chicago. How would this ordinace affect the Micheal Reese 2016 planned redevelopment? Would this ordinance lower the projected 20 million cost to clean the bio-hazards that contaminate this soil? And where is the mayor on this issue of transporting toxic soil into our nieghborhoods? He did not mind it at Bridgeport Villiage but look where that development ended up, shut down and bankrupt. If these Alderman and Politricks fail or get shut down(ie, Parking meter Lease) by some Federal intervention who will pay the clean-up cost of recapturing the toxic soil? The public needs to know now because hindsight is predicable in this town.
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Hmmm. If environmental testing really is done, this sounds like an excellent plan to me. The word "toxic" is a buzzword for many, many folks. The simple, scientific facts are that for most chemicals in modern society, there IS a safe amount/concentration that won't hurt people. I say reduce, reuse, recycle Chicago.
It is interesting that the "Toxic Dirt Ordinance" that the City is pushing claims that "under this plan anything that would end up on the site of a school or park would undergo testing to make sure it met the strictest state pollution standards . . ."-- but at the same time the city is fighting to the death the current litigation efforts of Protect Our Parks to compel testing of the toxic soil, air and artificial turf of the Latin School soccer field bulldozed into Lincoln Park, and to definitively eliminate all the health and safety dangers to young children detailed in the urgent public warnings issued by both the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention and the School of Public Health of the University of Illinois at Chicago . The beauty of the City's position is that the poisonous effects of the toxic chemicals will not be detected until long into the future after a child has been contaminated and suffered all the ill effects, many of which can not be reversed. But the Mayor and his people will all be long gone from the scene of the calamity that they have deliberately put into place.
This week Obama pulled the rug out from under decades of hard-fought consensus building on how to deal with nuclear waste. Almost any given policy issue could devolve to "let the individual aldermen decide what's best for their wards" even when that is clearly NOT what's best, and that's exactly what happened here. Our aldermen LOVE ordinances that give more power to aldermen. The key to the passage of this ordinance was the proviso in the latest version that requires notification of aldermen, and allows aldermen to "veto" dumping toxic soil in their ward! Wah??? The aldermen become gatekeepers for toxins. Notice how NO ONE thinks citizens or home owners should be notified. Now under what conditions might an alderman say, sure, bring it? So what exactly qualifies a Chicago alderman to make judgements about the toxicity of soils and the best disposition of it? The impact of this law is that developers' waste haulers will have to drop by aldermen's offices hat in hand. They would be well-advised to bring their checkbooks. With this ordinance, Daley cuts the aldermen in on a piece of his action, traditionally exclusively his: waste haulers. The aldermen are excited about a new source of revenue for their incumbency. Meanwhile a report issued this week and highlighted by Greg hinz in Crain's recommends we get our aldermen OUT OF the business of permitting. The authors recommend that the city of Chicago: * Remove aldermanic discretion from the license and permit-application processes, so that favoritism and corruption cannot squeeze out promising entrepreneurs. http://www.ij.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2704&Itemid=165 http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?page_id=2308&plckController=Blog&plckScript=blogScript&plckElementId=blogDest&plckBlogPage=BlogViewPost&plckPostId=Blog%3a1daca073-2eab-468e-9f19-ec177090a35cPost%3a94844e8e-6bbf-4113-9e71-7bd5de9b288a&sid=sitelife.chicagobusiness.com
From Crain's: But Mr. Reilly, who represents the Near North Side, says the report is on the right track. "I'm always having to sign pieces of paper," he says. "I think we need to do a lot more to streamline bureaucracy here in Chicago."
Our legislative representatives have so deeply intertwined themselves in permitting (zoning, signs, licenses, etc., anywhere there are a couple of bucks in one place) they are in effect absorbed into the executive branch of the Daley administration, and it is not at all surprising we have dysfunctional legislative oversight.
Daley allowed our aldermen to offer a new product in their product line: the right to dump toxic soil in our wards.
