Neighbors For Environmental Justice (N4EJ)

@n4ej.org

N4EJ is a grassroots, 501(c)3 nonprofit fighting for environmental justice on Chicago's Southwest Side #NoMatAsphalt We already know enough to act. 🔗 https://linktr.ee/n4ej 📧 info@n4ej.org bit.ly/IneffectiveByChoice bit.ly/ChicagoPaidToPollute

The Department of Environment’s full restoration is welcome news, said Anthony Moser, board president of Neighbors for Environmental Justice.

But “whether or not it turns out to be a meaningful change” depends on the department’s willingness to do things differently from its predecessors, Moser said.

Dropped charges, light fines and a willingness to negotiate tickets with large companies were common themes when the health department handled environmental enforcement, according to Moser’s 2023 report, “Ineffective By Choice.”

As the Department of Environment takes over, officials cannot continue to let repeat offenders slide, Moser said. He cited South Deering residents’ years-long struggle with Pullman Innovations’ “noxious odors” as an example of how residents suffer from a lack of enforcement.

“I think what matters more than [creating] new powers [for the Department of Environment] is having the political will to act,” Moser said. “They need to use the powers they have creatively, and … make some decisions about what the city wants to do when pollution is not an accidental thing, but actually a core part of [a facility’s] business model.”

The health department’s enforcement strategy under then-Assistant Commissioner Dave Graham was to “issue no more than three tickets for a existing issue to better force compliance when a facility is slow to respond,” Graham wrote in 2022.

Graham — whom former Inspector General Joe Ferguson recommended be fired for his role in a botched 2020 demolition that left Little Village coated in dust — has transferred to the Department of Environment. He remains the city’s director of environmental health and safety compliance, O’Shea said.

the green cover page of a report from N4EJ. There's a white bar across the middle, where the text reads "Ineffective By Choice: A review of environmental enforcement data in Chicago from 2002-2022" by Anthony Moser February 2023

$However, the city has no active plans to create more regulatory powers for the department, O’Shea said — nor do department officials appear set to take a stronger stance against repeat polluters than other city agencies have. Officials did not commit to enforcing each day a facility is found in violation of air pollution regulations as a separate infraction, even though that’s what the city code calls for. “Enforcement decisions will depend on the specific circumstances of each case,” O’Shea said, adding that the department will consider seeking “penalties to the fullest extent allowed under the code” if a facility doesn’t make timely progress toward compliance.$