There are considerable problems with air and land pollution in
Chicago’s Southwest neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village and, at a
meeting with community residents last night, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) committed to ongoing cleanup efforts.
Approximately 50 residents at Walsh Elementary School listened Tuesday night as the EPA presented the community with four plans for pollution reduction in their neighborhood.
With an eye toward the potential shut down of all of its Illinois coal-fired power plants and a possible bankruptcy filing, the February agreement
Midwest Generation made with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to close two
coal plants on the Southwest Side increasingly looks like a good deal
for the company, and not the ideal outcome for residents who live near the facilities.
Audience members offered a range of ideas at a city hearing last night
about what to do with the site currently occupied by the 108 year-old
Fisk coal-fired power plant in the Pilsen neighborhood, which closes
this September. Some of the ideas included a park, funeral home, public market, trade school,
and even a high school sports complex.
But all these visions will
be stymied if the Midwest Generation company cannot find a buyer
willing to not just build something new but also clean up, or remediate,
the site.
“There is a huge marketing job ahead of us,” acknowledged
Jean Pogge, CEO of the Delta Institute, the Chicago non-profit in charge
of a task force Mayor Rahm Emanuel created to determine the site’s future. Read more »
News of the EPA’s proposed standards for power-plant emissions comes shortly after Midwest Generation announced Chicago’s two infamous coal-fired power plants, Frisk and Crawford, will shut down. Progress Illinois reported last month about Chicago’s power-plant saga.
Double lung-transplant recipient Dan Dolan-Laughlin, 65, is one of many people who planned to speak at the hearing to urge the EPA to follow through with its carbon-regulation proposal.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced preliminary plans to redevelop the Fisk coal-fired power plant site in
Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood, now that the plant will close at the end
of 2012.
There are considerable problems with air and land pollution in
Chicago’s Southwest neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village and, at a
meeting with community residents last night, the 
Audience members offered a range of ideas at a city hearing last night
about what to do with the site currently occupied by the 108 year-old
Fisk coal-fired power plant in the Pilsen neighborhood, which closes
this September. Some of the ideas included a park, funeral home, public market, trade school,
and even a high school sports complex.
The 