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U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Withdraws Plans to Build New Toxic Waste Landfill along Lakefront in Chicago’s Southeast Side
“This is a victory for community residents and all of us who care about protecting healthy communities and Lake Michigan. Chicago’s lakefront is for people and parks, not toxic waste dumps.”
Chicago – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has withdrawn its Record of Decision for the Chicago Area Waterway System Dredged Material Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement, effectively ending its plans to build a toxic dredged waste landfill on the Lake Michigan shoreline in Chicago’s Southeast Side community.
The Alliance of the Southeast (ASE) and Friends of the Parks (FOTP), represented by the Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) public interest attorneys, filed a lawsuit in March 2023 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois to stop the Army Corps from building a new toxic waste landfill on 45 acres along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Chicago’s Southeast Side is already overburdened with toxic pollution that poses health risks to people who live there. Additionally, that shoreline site was promised long ago to the community to become a lakefront park for nearby residents and all Chicagoans to use and enjoy.
Howard Learner, ELPC’s Executive Director and lead attorney for the Plaintiffs Alliance of the Southeast and Friends of the Parks, said:
“Chicago’s lakefront is for people and parks, not toxic waste dumps. This is a victory for community residents and all of us who care about protecting healthy communities and Lake Michigan. The Army Corps of Engineers has now recognized that its proposed new toxic waste landfill along the Lake Michigan shoreline in the Southeast Side environmental justice community does not comply with applicable legal requirements and defies common sense. The Army Corps has formally withdrawn its Record of Decision approving its outdated environmental impact statement. The Army Corps will now need to find better and more sensible alternatives that are outside of Cook County and reduce the dredged waste to the extent practicable. There are better solutions and better alternatives to the Corps’ flawed approach.
“The Army Corps, Park District and City of Chicago should now work together to restore the site and transform it into the long-delayed new lakefront park for the public to use and enjoy.”
Amalia NietoGomez, ASE’s Executive Director, said:
“This is a big win for environmental justice neighborhoods like ours. We are very excited that the U.S. Army Corps finally did the right thing by withdrawing its plans for another toxic dump on top of the existing one, but it shouldn’t have to take a lawsuit to get them to do so. The Army Corps should not build this kind of toxic dump site in any EJ community.”
Sam Corona, local resident and Environmental Organizer for ASE, said:
“This long winding road is a victory in a long commitment for environmental justice for the 10th Ward and the Greater Calumet Regional area. Our continued efforts, care and stewardship of this environment is highlighted by this simple quote: ‘This land is not given to us by our forefathers but borrowed to us by our children.’”
Gin Kilgore, Interim Executive Director at FOTP, said:
“Friends of the Parks is heartened to learn the Army Corps of Engineers is doing the right thing. Our lakefront is no place for a toxic waste site. The 10th Ward is a community that has been overburdened with environmental justice issues for far too long. Now we can start turning our sights to capping the existing Confined Disposal Facility and turning it into the park they deserve and was promised to residents decades ago.”
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