The Reserve Management Group facilites can be seen on Feb. 16, 2022, in the East Side neighborhood of Chicago. The chronic polluter and scrap shredder closed its Lincoln Park facilities on the North Side, and plans to open operations at a site on the Calumet River in the East Side neighborhood. The Chicago Department of Public Health is reviewing a permit application. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Southeast Side residents, angry and frustrated about the prospect of another source of air pollution in their corner of Chicago, urged Mayor Lori Lightfoot again Wednesday to block a scrap shredder in their heavily industrialized neighborhood.

The Department of Public Health is expected to decide by the end of the week whether Reserve Management Group should get a permit the Ohio-based company needs before operating a new scrap shredder that appears ready to go along the Calumet River near Avenue O and 116th Street.

Megan Cunningham, a deputy city health commissioner, acknowledged during a Tuesday presentation that Chicagoans living in neighborhoods between Lake Michigan and Lake Calumet already breathe chronically dirty air. They also suffer more from cancer and other health problems than the rest of the city.

But a consultant hired by the city determined that pollution from the RMG scrap shredder would not pose unacceptable cancer risks — defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as more than one case per million people during a lifetime.

Nor would the shredder increase the risk of other health problems, Jeff Harrington, an air quality expert with California-based Tetra Tech, said during an online presentation organized by the city.

Rachel Patterson, nature and healing coordinator for the Southeast Environmental Taskforce, attends a news conference denouncing RMG's plan to open its scrap shredder on the Southeast Side of the city on Feb. 16, 2022, at City Hall in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Though an increase in truck traffic would negatively impact neighborhoods near RMG, health department officials concluded the company’s shredder would benefit the entire city by keeping scrap metal out of landfills.

Neighborhood activists who oppose the shredder have protested outside the homes of Lightfoot and Dr. Allison Arwady, the city’s health commissioner. Several activists, including a teacher at George Washington High School, staged a hunger strike to draw attention to what they consider environmental racism.

“It is a matter of life and death for the people on the Southeast Side and they deserve better,” Olga Bautista, executive director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force, said Wednesday during the City Hall news conference.

Bautista said there was “very little engagement” with the public during the Tuesday presentation, leading her and her allies to come downtown to make their voices heard. “The chat was disabled. They cut off community voices.”

The East Side, Hegewisch, and South Deering neighborhoods are scarred by 250 polluted sites actively monitored by federal and state authorities, EPA Administrator Michael Regan noted in a May 2021 letter to Lightfoot. More than 75 companies on the Southeast Side have been investigated for Clean Air Act violations since 2014 alone.

Olga Bautista, director of the Southeast Environmental Taskforce, speaks during a news conference denouncing RMG's plan to open its scrap shredder on the Southeast Side of the city on Feb. 16, 2022, at City Hall in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

“It’s because of all of these reasons that we as community members of the Southeast Side demand that the city of Chicago do the right thing and deny the permit,” said lifelong resident Oscar Sanchez.

Randall Samborn, an RMG spokesman, said the Tetra Tech study commissioned by the city mirrored the Illinois EPA’s conclusions about the scrap shredder before issuing a state permit in 2020.

Company officials have said they wouldn’t have built the new shredder without written assurances from the city. RMG closed the troubled General Iron scrap yard on the North Side after the Lightfoot administration agreed to help clear the way for the Southeast Side operation.

The deal is among a number of other city policies under investigation by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Activists contend the Lightfoot administration’s tentative approval of the RMG shredder violates provisions of the federal Fair Housing Act by adding another polluter to an often-neglected part of the city, where residential yards, baseball fields and playgrounds are contaminated with heavy metals and toxic chemicals.

The Department of Public Health acknowledges that living near industrial activity can damage the mental health of neighbors, leaving people with a sense of powerlessness. The impacts are felt disproportionately by low-income Black and Latino Chicagoans, the department concludes in an upcoming study.

“General Iron is no good for the Southeast Side,” Sanchez said.” “My community has a life expectancy of 30 years lower than those in some of the wealthiest communities here in Chicago.”

Local officials who attended Wednesday’s news conference also pointed out disparities in treatment of communities of color.

Oscar Sanchez, who participated in the hunger strike agains General Iron, speaks during a press conference denouncing RMG's plan to open its scrap shredder on the Southeast Side of the city on Feb. 16, 2022, at City Hall in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Cook County Commissioner Brandon Johnson said it is disturbing that community groups, particularly those in brown and Black communities, have to “constantly plead” with the administration to adhere to civil rights and environmental justice practices.

“This is a clear indication of what inequity looks like when you move a toxic facility out of the space of a predominantly white community and force it on Black and brown folks who will be impacted not just in one particular ward but the entire region,” Johnson said.

Cook County Commissioner Bridget Degnen recalled when the city ordered the North Side scrap shredder to shut down after two explosions in one day.

“In May of 2020 a mushroom cloud erupted from General Iron and the city decided to shut it down while they conducted an investigation, which then turned into the full closure of the Lincoln Park location,” Degnen said. “Deny the permit. Stand up to big polluters like this one.”

Cunningham, the deputy health commissioner, vowed the city will improve its permitting process and outreach to neighborhoods in the future.

Money from the American Rescue Plan will be used to deploy more air quality monitors around Chicago and study the cumulative impacts of pollution citywide, she said.

“We need to be even more rigorous about how we analyze that data,” Cunningham said. “We’ve learned through this process about the importance of health and racial equity impact assessments to inform city decision making.”