The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is reneging on a 40-year-old deal to restore a lakefront site on the Southeast Side to parkland after use as a toxic waste dump.
The Army Corps of Engineers’ Confined Disposal Facility and Illinois International Port District can be seen, March 3, 2021, in Chicago. Constructed in 1984, the disposal facility stores toxic sediment dredged from the Calumet River and the Cal-Sag Channel. The 45-acre site, adjacent to Calumet Park, was supposed to be turned over to the Chicago Parks District in 2022 for redevelopment.
A coalition of environmental groups sued in federal court to stop the project, and that lawsuit is pending. Oral arguments are scheduled for this summer. We disagree. What’s to stop the corps decades from now from moving to build yet another dump and making exactly the same arguments? The Army Corps says in its briefs that it’s considered dozens of alternatives to this project, including other sites inside and outside of the 10th Ward, and that none are feasible. It dismisses suggestions that it truck the sediments to private waste facilities already permitted to accept such materials, arguing that would be too expensive and questioning whether there’s adequate capacity.
Johnson has been petitioned to end this deal with the corps, not just by Ald. Chico but also by 23 community and environmental groups, including the Environmental Law & Policy Center, Alliance of the Southeast and Friends of the Parks. Those three are plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit as well.
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