Block Club Chicago

Brighton Park Tent Encampment Deemed Safe — Despite Mercury Contamination, Mayor’s Office Says

Sat, 02 Dec 2023 17:44:56 +0200

BRIGHTON PARK — High levels of mercury and other dangerous contaminants were found on the vacant Brighton Park lot slated to house up to 2,000 asylum seekers — but the city still deemed the lot “safe for temporary residential use” after remediation efforts, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office said late Friday.

The environmental investigation and corrective action report was released Friday night for the site, which was formerly used as a rail yard, zinc smelter and truck trailer parking.

According to the report, investigators found high levels of mercury in one area of the lot, which was excavated and disposed off offsite. Soil containing a chemical called bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate — used in PVC — “will be remediated via excavation and landfill disposal.”

Arsenic, lead and manganese were also found at levels “which exceeded in residential ingestion exposure route at certain sample locations,” according to the report.

To limit access to contaminated soil, contractors have capped the entire lot with a six inch stone layer, which will be periodically inspected and maintained, the report said.

“With the limited soil removal and placement and maintenance of the barrier, the site is safe for temporary residential use,” the Mayor’s Office said in a press release Friday.

The full, nearly 800 page environmental assessment can be found here.

The release of the report comes as construction began this week to erect massive tent structures on the Southwest Side site, a decision which has garnered fierce backlash in recent months from some neighbors over concerns about housing people there as well as potential environmental risks.

A protest sign is attached to the fence as construction crews begin to build the winterized tent camp for migrants on the vacant lot at 37th Street and California Avenue in Brighton Park on Nov. 29, 2023. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

Johnson and his administration had promised to publicly release the environmental report, conducted by a firm called Terracon Consultants, by the end of the week.

But on Friday afternoon, a city spokesperson directed a Block Club reporter to file a Freedom of Information Act request through the city’s Department of Assets, Information and Services to access the report. The report was not released until shortly before 8 p.m. Friday.

“Due to the private ownership of the land, the City cannot willingly send out the environmental report for the 3710 S. California Avenue site,” a spokesperson said in an email Friday night.

The selection of the site at 38th Street and California Avenue in the Brighton Park neighborhood has been opposed not only by neighbors but also the area’s alderperson, Julia Ramirez (12th). In October, Ramirez was attacked during a protest against using the lot as a tent encampment.

Still, construction work began at the site on Monday, even though the environmental report had not yet be released to the alderperson or the public. The report is dated Dec. 1.

“Let me be clear: I am opposed to the construction of his site, especially as the full environmental impact study results have not been shared with my office or with the community,” Ramirez wrote in an open letter to her constituents last week.

Asked about environmental concerns at the site on Tuesday, Johnson said the city is operating under standard building procedures and that no one would be moved into the camp until the environmental assessment has been released.

“As we’ve been doing at all of our sites, we’ve assessed and we have looked for any contaminants and all of the remediation that’s necessary to eliminate the contaminants, that’s very much a part of my overall agenda,” Johnson said.

About 500 people — families with children — would move into the Brighton Park tent camp at first, with an expected maximum capacity of about 2,000 residents, Cristina Pacione Zayas, Johnson’s deputy chief of staff, said at a community meeting in October.

When plans for the Brighton Park camp were first announced, Ramirez slammed Johnson for a lack of transparency surrounding the process. Critics have also been vocal about the troubled reputation of GardaWorld, the contractor which received a $29 million city contract to build the camps.

The “winterized base camps” were proposed by Johnson’s administration in September as a way to get thousands of new arrivals out of police stations and provide them a form of shelter as winter arrives.

Construction crews begin to build the winterized tent camp for migrants on the vacant lot at 37th Street and California Avenue in Brighton Park on Nov. 29, 2023. Credit: Colin Boyle/Block Club Chicago

Community groups, like the McKinley Park-based Neighbors for Environmental Justice and the Brighton Park Neighborhood Council, have also criticized the city’s choice to move forward with the tent camp in light of environmental concerns and lack of coordination with neighbors.

“This plan is unsafe,” Neighbors for Environmental Justice wrote in a statement this week. “It is unsafe because putting families in tents on an industrial site by the highway is inherently unsafe. … Toxic metal contamination can make it worse, but environmental remediation cannot make it safe because the plan itself is dangerous.”

The Brighton Park Neighborhood Council said in a statement Thursday the group reached out to Johnson’s administration in October with recommendations of how the city can support both migrants at the base camp and the surrounding residents — but never heard back.

“We urge the Mayor and his administration to engage grassroots community leaders in the development of this plan and to radically improve their communication and transparency with all stakeholders,” the group wrote.

Meanwhile, the city continues to move migrants out of police stations and O’Hare airport into temporary shelters. But some migrants are still sleeping outside, even as wind chills dipped into single digits last week.

As of Saturday morning, about 860 asylum seekers were living in police stations, down from a high of more than 3,000 in mid-October. More than 13,200 migrants are currently living across 26 city-run shelters.

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