![]() “There aren’t a lot of short-term political benefits to aggressively prosecuting companies for environmental violations,” Moser said. With just one guilty plea in 12 years, health officials had no basis for barring Southside Recycling’s owners from opening the new facility, company attorneys said.īut the attorneys’ arguments likely say more about Chicago’s lax environmental enforcement than they do about industrial facilities’ good behavior, according to a report from the activist group Neighbors for Environmental Justice.ĭropped charges, light fines and a willingness to negotiate tickets with large companies are common themes in the Chicago Department of Public Health’s environmental enforcement over the past decade, the “Ineffective by Choice” report reads.Īnthony Moser, board president of Neighbors for Environmental Justice and the report’s author, pored over 20 years of public records and came to a striking conclusion: The city’s enforcement methods give industrial businesses little incentive to follow environmental laws. The company in violation, Reserve Marine Terminals, paid a $1,000 fine, and the city dropped a separate air pollution charge. ![]() ![]() ![]() EAST SIDE - Earlier this year, as Southside Recycling’s attorneys fought the city’s decision to deny the metal scrapper a permit to open on the Southeast Side, they highlighted the track records of the scrapper’s related companies.Įxisting facilities on the East Side campus run by the scrapper’s owners pled guilty to only one environmental violation from 2009 until Southside Recycling’s denial in 2021 - a 2019 permit violation after dust left the campus grounds, according to public records.
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