Bubbles of methane gas rise to the oily surface of a small pond next to a heap of trash that includes a gas mask once used by an employee of the Alburn Incinerator, which used to stand here. Rusted barrels nestle in the reeds, and twisted pieces of metal poke up through the water and vegetation.
“This was no-man’s-land in the 80s,” says Victor Crivello, a resident of nearby Pullman and a former environmental technician for the Illinois EPA. IEPA officials have described the cluster site as an ecological disaster–a festering brew of industrial and municipal waste including PCBs, lead, chromium, arsenic, and “volatile organic compounds” such as benzene, toluene, and xylene. These contaminants permeate the soil and groundwater and are present in varying degrees in the local ponds and marshes that feed the Calumet River, which runs into Lake Michigan. They pose hazards to the environment and to human health.
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But this isn’t a doom-and-gloom story. The money to fix the problems at the cluster site exists. Federal and state EPA officials are all for fixing it and so is Governor Rod Blagojevich. All that’s needed now is the city’s OK.
David Reynolds, first deputy commissioner for the Chicago Department of Environment, says the city isn’t likely to take a position on the Superfund listing. It’s waiting for more information from the U.S. EPA. “We need to know, if the site was listed, what’s true as far as how it would affect property values?” he says. “Is there a stigma associated with an NPL listing? How will it affect insurance rates in the area? What is the certainty of funding? If there’s data that suggest that property values decrease when a site gets put on the NPL, that insurance rates increase, and that there’s no certainty of funding, why do we want to do this?”
But William Muno, who recently retired as director of the Superfund for the Great Lakes region, and current EPA officials promise that if the Lake Calumet Cluster Site is listed on the NPL, funding for its cleanup will be found. Muno adds that ideally the PRPs would voluntarily clean up the site so that the stigma of the listing could be avoided. In October the U.S. EPA sent out more than 300 letters to PRPs for the Calumet site, and some of the PRPs have been holding meetings to decide whether to do a voluntary cleanup, according to Muno. But nobody’s come to a decision yet.
If they have their way, the mess that now makes up the cluster site will be turned into one of the last places in the region where people can enjoy the never-developed indigenous wetlands and forest that surround the contaminated plots. Plans are in the works to contain and seal the worst-polluted areas and remediate less-contaminated parcels, then adorn the area surrounding the cluster site with a nature center, trails, viewing boxes, and other facilities Chicagoans can use to enjoy the outdoors. While some parts of the cluster site will probably never be open for public use, if they are remediated adequately they’ll be prevented from seeping contamination into the surrounding open space and nature reserves, which, according to EPA officials, will then be completely safe for public enjoyment.
