The National Latino Coalition on Climate Change (NLCCC) is calling on President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address air pollution and the health hazards associated with it.
The group sent a letter to the President and the EPA asking for stronger carbon emission standards for coal-fired power plants. The coalition noted that the Latino community is especially vulnerable to such emissions since half of its U.S. population lives in counties where there are violations in clean air standards.
A mayoral task force released
a report Saturday with broad guidelines for how to redevelop the site
of two Chicago coal-fired power plants on the Southwest Side that shut down in
August. A main recommendation was that the sites be used to
create local jobs in non-polluting industries.
Community advocates
who live in the Pilsen neighborhood, the site of the closed Fisk plant, and
Little Village, home of the shuttered Crawford plant, credit Mayor Rahm
Emanuel not just for working with Midwest Generation company to
shut down the plants, but also for using a task force to spark community
dialogue.
“Usually task forces are where something goes to be
forgotten,” says Nelson Soza, executive director of Pilsen Alliance and a
member of the task force. “But this task force raised the profile of
these sites.”
However, the panel did not weigh in on a central
concern of community residents: who will take on remediation, i.e. the
process of cleaning up the industrial site. The report reads that, “The issue of
remediation was discussed by the Task Force, but the Task Force was
unable to reach consensus on a recommendation for further action.” Read more »
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.
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office will hold two community hearings
this week regarding the Fisk and Crawford coal-fired power plant sites
on Chicago’s South Side. Midwest Generation is scheduled
to close the plants in September. Community excitement that the aging
plants are shutting down has partly given way to fears that the city and
Midwest Generation will never clean up or “remediate” the sites.
“Nobody
wants to deal with the remediation process,” claims Rafeal Hurtado, an
organizer at the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization
(LVEJO), a group that advocated shutting down the Crawford plant. Read more »
The National Latino Coalition on Climate Change (NLCCC) is calling on President Barack Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address air pollution and the health hazards associated with it.
A mayoral task force 
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office will hold two community hearings
this week regarding the Fisk and Crawford coal-fired power plant sites
on Chicago’s South Side. Midwest Generation is scheduled
to close the plants in September. Community excitement that the aging
plants are shutting down has partly given way to fears that the city and
Midwest Generation will never clean up or “remediate” the sites.