Reserve Management Group was cited by city last month after a roof collapse at a building on the proposed site.
A recycling company that wants to open a controversial metal recycling plant on Chicago’s Southeast Side should be denied city permits after failing to report the partial collapse of a building on the proposed site for the facility, activists said Wednesday.
In an online forum, activists called on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to deny a long-delayed permit for Reserve Management Group to operate a metal-shredding facility on a site along the Chicago River at 11600 S. Burley Ave.
The roof collapse on a vacant building at the site, which city inspectors said happened as far back as April but was not reported to the city until July, shows RMG cannot be trusted to observe environmental rules, said Lauren Bianchi, a social studies teacher at George Washington High School.
“We need to set a clear precedent that will hold companies with bad records to account for the harm they cause,” said Bianchi, who said the metal-shredding operation would be less than a mile from her school. “The process of ending and healing from environmental racism can start immediately. It can start when the city denies this permit.”
RMG’s proposed metal-shredding plant has stirred controversy since the company in 2019 purchased General Iron, which for more than a century had operated a scrap yard and shredding complex on an industrial site along the North Branch of the Chicago River in the upscale, predominantly white Lincoln Park neighborhood.
Residents there and in neighboring Bucktown had for years complained about pollution from General Iron, but RMG pledged to build the world’s cleanest metal shredding facility when it moved the operation to the Southeast Side site. A spokesman for RMG did not immediately respond to questions from the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday.
The plan has been opposed by members of the Southeast Side Environmental Task Force, which hosted the online forum Wednesday. Lightfoot announced she was delaying review and approval of RMG’s permit as federal agencies including the EPA, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Housing and Urban Development. RMG has sued the city over the delays.
City officials did not immediately respond to requests for an update on the status of RMG’s permit application.
from Chicago Sun-Times - All https://ift.tt/3rV2mTn
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