It
includes revitalizing the Chicago River via restoring the natural
divide between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River Basins.
Physical separation of the basins and Lake Michigan
is the only permanent solution to prevent invasive species from
transferring through the Chicago waterways, members of the coalition
said at it’s public “Changing Course: Revitalizing the Chicago River”
talk Wednesday night. The meeting was set to get more people engaged with the issue.
“This is about a lot more than Asian carp,” said Tim Eder, executive director of the Great Lakes Commission.
“This is about more than just one fish that threatens Lake Michigan.
It’s about a number of different invasive species ... but it’s also about
more than fish, and the ecosystem, and the lake. It’s about restoring
and utilizing a precious resource that in many ways the city has turned
its back on.”
The following was written by Jack Darin, director of the Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter.
The prospect of the gas industry coming Illinois to extract gas
from beneath our state using high-volume hydraulic fracturing has caused
a great deal of controversy and concern, especially in parts of
Illinois where leasing for drilling rights has been underway for well
over a year. Horror stories from other states about open pits of toxic
wastewater, secret brews of toxins injected into the earth, air
emissions sickening neighbors, and contaminated drinking water are just a
few of the impacts seen elsewhere. Read more »
A winter season that has thus far been defined by a record number of
snowless days and unseasonably warm temperatures has experts, advocates
and some of Illinois’ newly-elected congressional lawmakers raising
concerns over the kind of impact such conditions will ultimately have on
the environment.
At 320 days, Chicago broke a 72-year record last week for the consecutive number of days without an inch of snowfall, the
impact of which has already resulted in record low water levels in
Lake Michigan and parts of the Mississippi River, according to Natural Resources Defense Council spokesman Josh Mogerman.
“There’s
a new normal, and we have to start being cognizant of the change going
on around us,” Mogerman said. “There are things going on around us
right now in this moment that are really clear and clarion calls for
paying attention and making clear that climate change has already begun
and we need to address it.”
In 2006, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich heralded
a major environmental compromise with Ameren for which the St. Louis
energy company would spend $1.6 billion to reduce mercury, sulfur
dioxide and nitrogen oxide in their Illinois coal-fired power plants.
Today, environmentalists fear that deal is in jeopardy after the Illinois Pollution Control Board granted Ameren a five-year extension
Thursday for meeting new sulfur dioxide pollution standards. The
company now has until 2020, instead of 2015, to meet the standards
through installing pollution control equipment at their 1,186-megawatt
plant in Newton.
Ameren contended that the double whammy of the
economic downturn and lower electricity rates caused by the rise in
natural gas competitors forced a delay in compliance. Read more »
Supporters of wind energy are predicting that what happens in Congress over the next several days could be crucial to the fate of the industry, warning that more than 37,000 jobs could be in jeopardy if lawmakers fail to extend a vital tax credit for renewable power producers. Meanwhile, supporters and opponents of the tax credit are intensifying their calls for the credit's extension or demise.
Education and health professionals joined environmental
advocates this week to call on state officials to deny a request from
downstate power provider Ameren to delay compliance with more stringent
pollution-control regulation of its coal-fired power plants.
In a letter addressed to members of the Illinois Pollution Control Board (IPCB),
96 physicians, researchers and healthcare professionals urged the body
to uphold standards that would require coal-fired plants to
significantly reduce sulfur dioxide emissions by January 1, 2015.
Fuel efficiency for new cars sold in the U.S. reached a record high for the first half of 2012, according to the findings of an analysis released last week.
The study was conducted by the automotive analytical firm, Baum and Associates on behalf of the environmental advocacy group, Natural Resources Defense Council.
Two main factors the research identified as being a catalyst behind the
trend included an increased production of highly fuel efficient
vehicles as well as a rise in consumer demand for such cars.
“Not
only are consumers happy about this, but also the automakers
themselves,” said Alan Baum, principal of Baum and Associates. “When you
look at the new product offerings that are coming, the automakers are
clearly aware of the interest of the consumer in fuel economy.”
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 »
Illinois’ 
The following was written by Jack Darin, director of the Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter.
A winter season that has thus far been defined by a record number of
snowless days and unseasonably warm temperatures has experts, advocates
and some of Illinois’ newly-elected congressional lawmakers raising
concerns over the kind of impact such conditions will ultimately have on
the environment.
In 2006, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich 
Fuel efficiency for new cars sold in the U.S. reached a record high for the first half of 2012, according to the findings of an 
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.