There is a similar story at the Fisk Generating Station in Pilsen.

The smell is acrid at times. Plumes of smoke rise in to the air depositing black ash onto car doors and window sills.

Photo/Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization's Website

The two facilities burn coal directly into the atmosphere.

But aside from the more obvious symptoms, it’s the invisible particulate matter released into the air that causes real concern. Generally a term referring to a wide range of particles suspended in the air, particulate matter — in the case of the coal plants — refers to emissions such as mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and soot.

It’s, in part, the approximate 2.8 million pounds of soot jettisoned into the atmosphere, per year, that has given Chicago some of the worst asthma statistics nationwide. The Crawford and Fisk plants, two of Illinois’s six coal plants, are the single largest sources of particulate-forming air pollution in the city.

According to a study by the Harvard School of Public Health, the two plants combined contributed to 41 deaths, 550 emergency room visits and 2,800 asthma attacks each year. Together they put out enough carbon dioxide for every resident of the city to have a share of around two metric tons each.

“When it comes to the pollution in the atmosphere, you can’t really see it, and when you can’t see it you don’t realize how much it affects until it’s too late,” said Ian Viteri, clean power campaign organizer for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization.

At less than six miles apart the two coal plants together are unique in that they are located in heavily populated residential areas; they are, in fact, the top two nationwide. Originally built in 1903, the Fisk Generating Station is located within 3 miles of approximately 314,000 people; likewise, the Crawford plant, built in 1924, is within 3-miles of nearly 375,000 city residents.

Once heavily populated by Czech and Irish immigrants, both Pilsen and Little Village have since become important entry points for Mexican immigrants. To this day the area is roughly 86 to 96 percent Hispanic, largely lower-income and culturally vibrant.

“This is what we call environmental injustice,” said Dorian Breuer of the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization. “We’re talking about people that are struggling and yet they have one of the highest pollution rates.”

Within a few blocks of the Crawford Generating Plant sit Meyer Steel Drum; a waste disposal site, MRC Polymers and Prima Plastics. This high concentration of toxic-emitting sources—which can be seen in a “toxic tour” offered at request through LVEJO—is locally referred to as the ‘cloud factory’.

It’s the law

Because of their age, the two plants have been ‘grandfathered’ in; and are therefore exempt from most federal regulations requiring generating plants to use cleaner and safer, modern technologies.

In the case of Chicago’s two coal plants, the grandfather clause is used to skirt regulations such as the Clean Air Act, which, among other things, would force the plants to employ scrubbers—large towers that use an aqueous limestone mixture to absorb significant amounts of sulfur dioxide from emissions.

Instead the Crawford and Fisk plants emit freely into the atmosphere.

Midwest Generation, a subsidiary of Edison International, owns six of the state’s 22 coal-generating stations, which, in all contribute to nearly half of Illinois’ electricity.

Ald. Joe Moore (49th) said Midwest Generation is, “treating the plants like an old jalopy.”

The corporation is also being sued.

In July of 2009, five environmental and public health groups announced a Clean Air Act lawsuit against Midwest Generation. A month later the Environmental Protection Agency, along with the Illinois Attorney General filed a similar lawsuit against the corporation.

Though the two coal plants are exempt from many modern restrictions outlined in the Clean Air Act, the EPA has issued a notice against Midwest Generation accusing the company of frequently violating air safety standards.

Opponents of the coal plants hope to force Midwest Generation into compliance with higher air safety restrictions.

“The coal plants are largely operating legally,” said Breuer. “That’s why we have to change the law.”

Clean Power

Regulations that would force both the Crawford and Fisk plants to clean up their act were proposed by Moore last April, a proposal which Midwest Generation, owner of the two plants, has expressed no interest in supporting.

The Chicago Clean Power Ordinance acknowledged that coal-fired power plants have a “devastating impact on public health” and would, in effect, impose significant restrictions on Chicago’s coal plants despite their grandfathered status.

If enacted the Ordinance would impose fines of $1,000 for every pound of mercury over 4 pounds, annually. Likewise, any offender would be fined $1,000 for every extra ton of sulfur dioxide over 500 tons and every extra ton of nitrous oxide over 1,000 tons, annually.

The two combined plants, according to 2004 data obtained by P.E.R.R.O, emit 230 pounds of mercury and nearly 18,000 tons of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide a year.

Despite the negative health affects suffered by Chicago residents, especially those living in closer proximity to the plants, none of the power generated at Crawford and Fisk is sold explicitly to Illinois companies. Midwest Generation sells its power to the highest bidder, not necessarily to the community which it pollutes through production.

This is more than corporate business strategy; it is also Chicago politics.

The Chicago Clean Power Ordinance is currently logging time in the Rules Committee, chaired by Ald. Richard Mell (33rd), a place widely considered the graveyard for doomed proposals. It will take the support of 26 Alderman to resuscitate the Ordinance, which, at the time of this article, remains 14 short of a resurrection.

According to Moore, the Ordinance is “still very much alive”; Mell, however has yet to show as much optimism.

No Conflict of Interest?

The number of aldermanic supporters of the Chicago Clean Power Ordinance is a scattered group including wards from all over the city, now, announced August 3, with the addition of Pilsen’s own Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd).

“He had a change of heart,” said Moore.

This is an important change, seen by many local environmental organizations as a sign of hope. With the addition of Munoz, more Aldermen are expected to end the blockade and sign on.

The two Aldermen, of the city’s two wards where the coal plants are located, have according to the Illinois Board of Elections, taken a total of approximately $75,000 in campaign contributions from Midwest Generation over the last 9 years — since 2001 Midwest Generation has contributed nearly $1.34 million to various Chicago political campaigns.

Ald. Daniel Solis (25th) whose ward contains Little Village’s Fisk Generating plant and who has yet to lend his support to the Ordinance, according to the Illinois Board of Elections website, has taken nearly $49,000 in campaign contributions from Midwest Generation since 2002, the most recent in the amount being $1,500 in April of this year.

The same month, coincidentally, in which the Ordinance was introduced by Moore.

“There is no conflict of interest,” said Maya Solis, the alderman’s spokesperson and daughter.

According to Kristie Menas, an assistant at Solis’s office in charge of reviewing the Ordinance, the alderman, “does not currently have a position, but is currently doing research (on the issue).”

Though the support of Solis would go a long way toward breaking resistance to the Clean Power Ordinance, the support of Munoz directs a renewed attention to Chicago’s public health.

“The increasing number of Aldermanic support reflects pressure from constituents concerned about their health, the health of their kids and the health of the planet,” said Moore. “Cleaning the plants would be a meaningful impact.”

So, “Where is Alderman Solis?”

Welcome to the world of recycling.

Unless, that is, you live in Chicago, or more specifically, most of Chicago; in which case your invitation may be located several neighborhoods away.

For those individuals living in recycling deserts, and for whom not recycling is not an option, a trek to the nearest drop-off center is mandatory. Unfortunately the drop-off may be located miles away.

Reports of overflowing blue carts at recycling centers are both common, and well documented; only adding to the frustration of many city residents that hold recycling as a priority.

Recycling service in the city is spotty like bad cell phone reception, and to some residents, even more inconvenient. Since its inception five years ago, the city’s blue cart recycling service is stuck at servicing only 33 of the city’s 50 wards, with 33 centers in various communities across the city.

This is an improvement as, until recently, there were only 15 drop-off centers for the entire city—which, in itself, was an improvement upon the lamentable blue bag system, discontinued in 2005 under nearly constant scrutiny from individuals and organizations who found it inefficient.

While the Loop itself doesn’t have any residential blue cart service, the area is relatively flush with commercial recycling containers.

There is though just one drop-off location, at 1758 S. Clark St.

This is the good news.

Matt Smith, spokesperson for the Department of Streets and Sanitation, said 241,000 of 600,000 households are covered by the blue cart system.

Though there is no national law mandating recycling, the U.S. has consistently improved its recycling habits. Unfortunately the volume of garbage produced has outpaced the capacity to reuse.

Recycling takes many forms and involves various methods. It may be residential or commercial. It may swear by single-stream; the City of Chicago’s method of choice, in which individuals simply pile all recyclable materials into one bin for later separation, dual-stream; a method in which paper is separated from all other recyclable materials, or triple-stream processes; in which all materials are separated by sort.

It can be complicated and some doubt whether recycling, in itself, is even economically viable.

Support for this argument may be found in a recent report in the Chicago Sun-Times, which uncovered the existence of nearly $1 million in unused blue carts sitting in a South Side warehouse.

Fortunately, the city isn’t alone in the business of reprocessing used materials. Among the many private services found in Chicago’s South Loop is a company called Recycling Services Incorporated. The organization employs a dual-stream processing system and covers around 40% of downtown commercial buildings, including Columbia College. It specializes in paper recycling.

Bernadette McMahon, the company’s marketing director, balked at the idea of recycling not being economically viable.

“You have to have the desire to recycle in the first place;” she said, “but if there’s no way to recycle then what good is it?”

Recycling Services Inc. supports the use of products which “close the loop” which, basically, involves selling recycled materials back to companies that produced the waste in the first place. The company recycles nearly 400 tons of paper a day.

Another form of recycling service is found on the South Side at the Resource Center, the city’s largest, and oldest, non-profit recycler.

While the City of Chicago employs a single-stream process for its recycling, the Resource Center uses  the three-stream system, which Mike McNamee, the Center’s director, says is more efficient. According to McNamee, the single-stream method is more likely to produce waste by, for example, combining bits of glass with paper, rendering both materials unfit for recycling.

The three-stream system involves separating plastics, aluminums and paper from each other in order to allow more recyclable material and less waste due to contamination.

McNamee gives the city a grade of below average, largely due to what he calls its lack of enforcement that would otherwise encourage a greater rate of recycling.

He would also like to see the City publish a report detailing the amount of waste its single-stream process produces.

“If something is useful it’s important to do what you can to get it used,” said McNamee, “If you say ‘recyclable’ that means things can’t get thrown out.”

But changes to the city’s recycling system are unlikely to occur any time soon. The city announced in 2009 that no new funds for the blue cart system would be included in the 2010 budget.

“An extremely tough economy constrained future expansion and required us to focus on maintaining delivery of our most basic services,” said Smith, “When there is sustained improvement in the economy we can take another look at the possibility of renewing our expansion.”

A van used for transport and processing of detained undocumented immigrants in Broadview, Ill.

An all-night vigil was held April 27 outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) daytime staging facility in Broadview, Ill., culminating in a planned civil disobedience action. Around 100 supporters and various immigration reform organizations participated throughout the night in protest of U.S. immigration laws, which they say break up families and violate human rights.

“We want to send the message to President Obama that he needs to stop raids and deportations” said Padre Jose Landaverde. “We want legalization for all.”

Members of local religious groups, students and supporters sat down in front of the ICE immigration center in a move aimed at stopping the relocation of detainees for deportation. Two dozen protesters were arrested during the peaceful demonstration.

“If the fight is going to be fought, then we need to escalate,” said Rabbi Joshua Salter. “Civil disobedience is the next step for the good of all,” he added before being taken away by police.

For the moment, the 24 protesters were successful as the van began to back up into the processing center parking lot while chants of “We shall not be moved” rose from the sidelined crowd.

But white vans full of detainees arrive and depart from Broadview on a regular basis.

According to Gail Montenegro, an officer of ICE Public Affairs, the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) staging facility in Broadview processes approximately 250 undocumented individuals each week.

This year, nearly 400,000 undocumented immigrants around the U.S. will be deported, according to an ICE memo subject titled “removal goals.” The quota for deportations has risen during the Obama administration.

According to a report from the Office of Immigration Statistics, the number of deportations over the last 10 years has doubled; the lowest point being around 160,00

Rabbi Joshua Salter and Padre Jose Landaverde demonstrate at the ICE detention center in Broadview, Ill., prior to their arrest.

0, in 2002. It has risen steadily since.

In 2008, nearly one-third of deportations were due to criminal activity. The remaining two-thirds were largely a combination of work-place raids, denied applications for legal residency and travel violations.

Individuals in this ‘two-thirds’ category vary greatly in circumstance. While some, as adults, may have overstayed a visitors’ visa, many have been brought to the U.S. as children. As these children grow to reach adulthood they frequently find they are ineligible for many social services afforded to citizens, though they may have spent equal amounts of time in the country. This becomes apparent in cases of such as employment, as well as higher education; many states prohibit undocumented immigrants from attending college.

The issue of rights and liberties becomes complicated when applied to the nearly 12 million individuals in the country illegally. Many Constitutional rights are guaranteed to any person residing in the country, even illegally; these are ‘natural rights,’ as exemplified through many U.S. Supreme Court rulings affecting immigrants, such as Wong Wing v. U.S., in which the Supreme Court ruled that the “the 14th Amendment to the Constitution [civil rights] is not confined to the protection of citizens.” Many civil liberties apply to undocumented immigrants as well, such as the right to free expression and due process.

In short, once inside U.S. borders, undocumented immigrants have the same protections as all U.S. citizens.

“Immigration didn’t use to be this political,” said Justin Randolph, a Chicago immigration attorney. “There’s a lot of abuse of the system.”

According to Randolph, detention of immigrants is now a multi-billion dollar business, which on a local level includes “arbitrary decisions” that create a “disparity between cases as far as where a person lives.”

“It’s about who’s coming in, and not that they’re going through the process,” said Randolph. “What you’re running into now is ‘keep all the brown people out’.”

Nationwide, many citizens and undocumented residents are calling for comprehensive immigration reform. The debate has escalated in the wake of Arizona’s S.B. 1070, which was signed on April 23 and is seen by many as a law that promotes racial profiling. Acts of civil disobedience, including a hunger strike and organized resistance to detainee transportation, have emerged around the country in protest to current U.S. immigration laws.

“I think [civil disobedience] lets everyone in the nation know that the current system is so broken that people have had enough,” said Tom Walsh, director of Advocacy and Public Policy at the Jewish Council on Urban Affairs. “I hope it’s waking people up to the severity of the issue.”

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/11721836[/vimeo]

After their arrest at the ICE processing center, Walsh and the 23 other protesters were taken to Broadview police department holding cells and charged with misdemeanors and disorderly conduct. This, according to Walsh, is from having “knowingly failed to obey a lawful order of dispersal, causing substantial inconvenience by blocking traffic.”

The group has been released and awaits a court date on May 24.

Chicago Public Radio’s City Room reports on protests for immigration reform.

Youth Protesters Talk About Immigration Reform

Eight undocumented young people are taking their fight to Washington after “coming out of the shadows” last week in Chicago’s Federal Plaza.

The Immigrant Youth Justice League and nearly 6,000 Illinois supporters will join thousands from around the country in Washington, D.C. on Sunday to demand that President Barack Obama uphold his promise to support comprehensive immigration reform.

“We want to bring the message to the president that immigration reform is urgent and affects a lot people, not only immigrants but also citizens in regards to the economy and keeping families together,” said Catherine Salgado, a member of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. “We are asking the president to use leadership in moving immigration reform forward.”

The trip to Washington follows last Wednesday’s march for immigration reform where hundreds of supporters joined the Immigrant Youth Justice League in Chicago’s Union Park; protesters marched through downtown before assembling at a rally in Federal Plaza.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HS93wb_jpAg&NR=1[/youtube]

“We are here to say that we are undocumented and unafraid,” said one young person as supporters took up the chant.

At the risk of possible deportation, members of the League declared their immigration status to the crowd gathered below Sen. Dick Durbin’s office in a move meant to “turn up the heat “ on the senator, an advocate of comprehensive immigration reform.

Several phone calls were made to Sen. Durbin during the rally, but the calls were redirected to his voice mail.

Among the issues addressed at the rally were education, social services and human rights as well as deportations, which are reported to have increased under the Obama administration.

While there are several ways to gain access to the country, many undocumented immigrants are brought to the U.S. as children only to find, typically upon graduating high school, that services guaranteed to their peers are denied them despite years of growing up in this country. A student may graduate high school to find that they are ineligible for the financial aid that could pay for college.

“[I] received a $20,000 scholarship from a great university,” said Uriel Sanchez, a member of the League. “One week before I was supposed to start school I received a call from an administrator asking for my social security number … I didn’t have one, and I had to pass on the scholarship and on going to a four-year university.”

Though it isn’t against the law for undocumented students to attend college in the U.S., stories of undocumented students held from college educations are common. The DREAM act, supported by U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, would alleviate this situation by proposing that undocumented youth be eligible for a conditional path to citizenship in exchange for completion of a college degree or two years of military service.

As the U.S. continues to struggle over how to best deal with immigration, stories of deferred educations, separated families, workplace raids and back-logged legalization processes serve as narratives on the state of our national undocumented population.

Under the present law, any of the nearly 11 million individuals in the U.S. illegally are subject to arrest, detainment or deportation.

According to a written statement from Gail Montenegro, spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Illinois, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) respects the fundamental right of individuals to advocate for reform of our nation’s immigration laws. ICE is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that places priority first on those dangerous criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities.”

To contact Sen. Dick Durbin’s office with your comments, call (312) 353-4952 or click here.

Nearly 200 students and faculty members rallied at the University of Illinois-Chicago to demand that the university not “balance the budget on the backs of students, faculty and the community” through tuition increases, mandatory furloughs and layoffs. The protest was organized by United in Campaign Against Budget Cuts, a coalition made up of SEIU Local Union 73, members of the UIC’s Graduate Employee Organization, as well as other student and faculty groups.

Originally an issue well known to California’s universities, higher education budget cuts have spread throughout the country to states such as Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Georgia and New York. In Chicago, the cuts could be accompanied by a 20 percent increase in tuition at UIC.

“I don’t want to see a loss of public education,” said UIC student Katherine Karbarz. “It’s important for people of all socioeconomic backgrounds to get a chance to go to school. I don’t want people who deserve to go to school to not be able to afford it.”

Protesters across the nation have been met with a wide range of reactions, detailed in numerous blogs and message boards. Arrests have been made in California as well as in Milwaukee, where 15 students were arrested after trying to deliver a petition to the chancellor at the University of Wisconsin.

“We’re here to support students and workers here at the UIC,” said Trumaine Reeves of SEIU Local 73. “We have to stand up and let our voices be heard together and we can’t be ignored.”

This sentiment was echoed by other students, workers and faculty members as the rally marched toward the campus administrative building.

“I’m here to show support as a person of the city of Chicago” said one protester identifying himself  simply as Cirrocco.

The rally, held on the UIC quad, was preceded by an open discussion with Howard Bunsis, a professor of accounting at Eastern Michigan University and author of a report analyzing the financial condition of the University of Illinois system.

UIC administration declined to take part in the discussion, and did not return phone calls.

“Speaking on behalf of the coalition,” said Joe Iosbaker, chief steward for SEIU Local 73, “we were very disappointed that the administration didn’t join for what turned out to be lively discussion … They would have gotten perspective on the needs of students, faculty and the community.”

University administrators announced in January that because of the state’s failure to provide complete budget funds, it would resort to furlough and budget cuts. The state has provided the university only $17 million of the $436 million it has been owed since July 1, 2009, according to a report by FightBack! News.

Bunsis’ report comes to the conclusion that “the UI system has not been true to the core academic mission, as they have increased administrative costs at a higher rate than pure academic costs.” It further concludes that “furloughs are not necessary.”