Crawford & Fisk Coal Plants | Recycling | Commitment to Green Technologies | Sustainable Development
Environmental Grades
“Every department of City government and all our sister agencies—is committed to preserving our environment…by protecting the environment we improve public health; we save money on energy costs; we beautify the city; and we enhance the quality of life, which helps attract new residents and employers.”
Mayor Richard M. Daley, news conference at CTA facility, 2005
Carl Sandburg, who perhaps loved Chicago more than any poet ever has, in 1916 characterized the city he so favored as “Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation”—hardly a pristine picture. Nearly a century later, Chicago and its environs represent one of the most industrial—and dirtiest—places in the United States. Named in the July 2005 Reader’s Digest as the dirtiest of the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, based on air quality, water quality, industrial pollution (toxics), Superfund sites and sanitation, Chicago—at least the city proper—is fighting back. While remaining committed to industrial and economic development, Mayor Richard M. Daley has become an acknowledged environmental leader, lauded around the world with words such as “visionary.”
At Daley’s direction, Chicago’s Department of Environment has planted more than 500,000 trees, sprinkled the city with flowers1 and created a 3,000-acre wetland preserve near Lake Calumet.2 The city also initiated an industrial-restoration program that made the brownfield (contaminated-land) redevelopment effort in Chicago one of the largest in the United States3 and nursed the creation of 3 million square feet of green roof space on top of Chicago buildings.4 Happily, a by-product of this forceful push for environmental development has been the creation of local energy-technology firms and jobs.5
The Mayor’s obvious zeal for environmental progress makes his seeming indifference to certain, very large environmental problems perplexing. While we have seen recent indications of a shift in some positions—a retreat from the blue bag recycling program, for example6, major corporate polluters are ignored, further damaging air quality and endangering the health of local residents.
With two coal-fired power plants within city limits, Chicago ranks as the city second-most-affected by power plant pollution. The Fisk and Crawford plants, in the Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods, emit soot and smog forming sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides that are deleterious to human health, which are major reasons Chicago can’t meet federal health-based air quality standards. A study by the Harvard School of Public Health linked these plants’ pollution to 300 deaths, 13,900 asthma attacks, 2,600 emergency room visits and 500,000 incidents of upper respiratory disease annually—heavily affecting the densely populated neighborhoods around the power plants.7 The plants also emit mercury, a potent neurotoxin that accumulates in people and animals, as well as the pollution that many believe contributes to global warming.
Loopholes in federal laws regularly foil efforts to reduce coal-fired power plant pollution. When Congress updated the Clean Air Act in 1977, it exempted existing plants like Fisk and Crawford from complying with new, more stringent air pollution rules under the assumption these aging plants soon would close. More recently, a “cap and trade system,” in which clean plants sell their so-called emission credits—has allowed these plants to buy their way out of cleaning up—rather than invest in clean power technologies.8
Chicago has declined to address Fisk’s and Crawford’s pollution through ordinance, instead passing the buck to the federal government. However, Illinois’ home-rule provision affords large municipalities the power to self-govern provided their laws don’t conflict with those of the state or federal government. Illinois’ new constitution of 1970 secured for Chicago the power to handle most municipal matters, including those of public health, without seeking permission from Springfield.9 But despite having the power to do so, local officials have failed to adopt effective clean-air policies.
The Chicago Clean Power Ordinance, proposed by Ald. Ed Burke in 2002, would have imposed modern pollution emission limits on the Fisk and Crawford coal-fired power plants, reducing their pollution by about two-thirds.10 However, without the support of Mayor Daley, the ordinance died in the Energy Committee. It was reintroduced in 2003, but again lacked leadership or popular support necessary, and never made it onto the City Council floor for a vote. Power plant pollution is not as visible as flowers and trees, but that is no reason it shouldn’t warrant the city’s attention. Chicago’s two coal plants have chosen to spend their money on credits rather than on pollution-reducing technology, but the state has recently made demands upon Fisk and Crawford that will require them to lower their pollution levels.11 Mayor Daley failed to make this environmental issue a public health and social justice issue when he had the opportunity.
Since its inception in December 1995, the Chicago Blue Bag “recycling” program has been one of the United States’ least effective big city materials recovery programs.
Less than 10 percent of the waste collected from households is actually recycled, and only about 13 percent of the households “served” by the program participate.12 In addition, the program discriminates against lower-income residents by requiring the purchase of blue bags—those who wish to recycle without buying bags must use the program’s few privately owned drop-off sites, which can be difficult—and, carrying one’s recycling, awkward—to reach by public transportation.
The city long has asserted that the Blue Bag program saves money by using a single truck to collect both garbage and recycling. Instead, research shows that Chicago’s program is one of the most expensive in the country because the city must pay for every ton of waste to be sorted to recover a few recyclables. In fact, the cost is so high that in 2002 the city began trucking one-third of its loads directly to garbage-transfer stations to be shipped directly to landfills.13 Little of the fundamental data from Chicago’s Blue Bag program is publicly available. Instead, concerned organizations and the press have had to submit Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests to the city for recovery, participation and cost data.
Poor results and public skepticism have put pressure on the city to move in a new direction, and in 2005 it initiated a pilot program in the Beverly neighborhood to test the efficacy of the separate-bin system used by most U.S. cities. The success of that pilot (80 percent participation and 20-25 percent recovery)14 encouraged the city to take a far bolder step: On Oct. 21, it announced that in 2007, it would expand the pilot program to all low-density housing (single family and buildings of up to four units) in seven wards, where it will separately collect and haul recycling and garbage, plus add separate yard-waste pick-ups. Thanks to a state grant of $8 million, the city eventually will buy 600,000 new blue carts to implement the program citywide. In addition, effective immediately, 15 new recycling drop-off sites are set to open across the city.15 Even as Mayor Daley defended the blue-bag program, he said the blue-bin program will “eventually, definitely” be expanded citywide.16
Commitment to Green Technologies
As the need for energy independence grows, it becomes critical for cities to explore innovative alternative methods of harnessing power. Chicago has been proactive in using and promoting green technologies, attacking the problem at both the micro and macro level.
Mayor Daley has championed efforts that encourage Chicagoans to limit their energy usage. These include:
- Subsidizing a rain-barrel program that conserves water and prevents flooding by catching excess rainfall (and provides non-chlorinated H2O for gardens).17
- Exempting car-sharing companies from the Personal Property Lease Transaction Tax.
- Providing valet parking for bikes at city events.
The city is also making a vigorous attempt to lead by example:
- Last year, plans were made to install “Aerotecture” wind turbines on the roof of the Daley Center, and eight new horizontal turbines already have been installed on the new Helmut Jang building—an affordable housing complex built on the site of a demolished Cabrini-Green building. These turbines, a local invention, have been hailed by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Office of Technology as coupling “functionality with aesthetics [as they] are integrated into a building’s architecture…Aerotecture turbines integrate easily with new and existing buildings, and are an ideal application [for an] urban setting with variable direction and gusting winds.”18
- In Millennium Park, the two Exelon Pavilions are covered with solar panels that generate enough electricity annually to power 14 to 16 energy-efficient houses.19
- Chicago has made grants to provide affordable-housing developers and social-service agencies with 600 solar hot water collectors
- The city is effectively using recycled materials in day-to-day operations, from copy paper and street humps to in CTA’s L and subway lines.20
- Chicago’s growing green fleet has more than 100 hybrid and numerous other alternatively powered vehicles, including taxis. The city has retrofitted 600 Chicago Public School buses with oxidation catalyst systems to reduce emissions. It also has provided funding for the CTA to purchase 20 diesel-electric hybrid buses.21
Chicago doesn’t shy away from ambitious plans—in 2001 a decision was made that by the end of 2006, 20 percent of the city’s energy would come from renewable resources. Unfortunately, big dreams don’t always come true. Although the city fully planned to purchase 120,000 mega-watt-hours of electricity annually from wind turbines, the deal to buy the power fell through when developers refused to build a manufacturing plant here. The city also stopped buying green energy from landfills, which provided 10 percent of the electricity for city government only three years ago, because ComEd’s prices for that power became more expensive than other, less-clean types of power. The city still wants to achieve its 20 percent goal, but its projections have been pushed at least to the end of the decade.22 Still, the economic impact of these initiatives should not be overlooked—the Mayor’s encouragement of new environmental technologies has attracted new businesses and progressive industry to Chicago and the region. Although estimates vary, the combined indirect and direct output of these initial investments will increase Illinois’ economic input significantly, and create tens of thousands of new jobs.23
Since 1999, Chicago has constructed multiple public buildings that incorporate green building practices, and even built the first municipal building in the country—the Chicago Center for Green Technology - to be awarded a LEED Platinum rating. The city has also adopted the Chicago Standard, a new set of public-building construction requirements for new public and certain private developments. (The LEED Building Rating System is a voluntary consensus-based national standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings).
“Green” buildings tend to be high-quality structures that cost less to operate, require fewer resources to build and maintain, and are good for the health of both the occupants and the general environment. In May 2002, the Mayor inaugurated the Chicago Center for Green Technology in what had been an abandoned industrial building on an illegal brownfield dump site on Sacramento near Franklin. Today the center is the flagship of Chicago’s Green Buildings program. It ser ves as a national model and a local resource for students and others wishing to learn more about sustainable growth. It also proved conclusively that “going green” wasn’t all about new development.24
The city has instituted multiple programs to demonstrate that green-building principles can be applied to existing structures. Perhaps the most known of all these is the Green Roofs program. Currently, there are more than 250 green roofs in the city covering
3 million square feet (more than the rest of the country combined), 25 with more than a million more planned.26 Green roof tops improve air quality, conserve energy, reduce the “urban heat island” effect and reduce storm-water runoff. Perhaps the least known, but most visited green roof in the city is Millennium Park, which covers a huge parking garage. Building on its suc- cesses, the city is increasing its grant-making to assist with environmentally conscious residential or small commercial projects, and encouraging — or even requiring — green roofs in developments undergoing city review.
The bungalow-retrofitting project was initiated by the city to determine whether green-building principles could be applied affordably to existing homes. In an innovative and creative experiment, energy expenditures of four environmentally efficient bungalows were compared with energy bills for unimproved bungalows on the same block. The rehabbed buildings showed energy savings ranging from 15-49 percent.27 The city has determined that this type of retrofitting can be done in many types of residential buildings.
Chicago today is encouraging and, in some cases, demanding that new developments “go green.” Recognizing that the first step in convincing the business community to “go green” was to lead by example, Mayor Daley in 2002 decided that all new city buildings—including schools, libraries, police stations and firehouses—would use sustainable technologies. In August 2005, District 22 Police Station in Morgan Park became the first police station in the country to receive a LEED® Silver certification.28
To encourage green development in projects that are not required to go to the city for review (and, therefore, not required to incorporate green technologies), the city has offered expedited building permits—guaranteed in six weeks or less, an amazingly short turnaround. The city also will waive consultant-review fees for exceptionally green buildings. Large corporations and nonprofit organizations seem to be catching on—they see that in a 10- to 50-year lifecycle, environmentally conscious elements pay for themselves many times over. But speculative developers, who want to recoup costs immediately, may take considerably more convincing.
Crawford and Fisk Coal Plants
Chicago ranks second among U.S. cities hardest hit by the impact of power plant mercury pollution, in large part because of these two plants in Pilsen and Little Village. The city had the opportunity to impose modern pollution emission limits that would have reduced the pollution by about two-thirds, but the mayor passed the buck; the state, however, is beginning to address these issues.
Recycling
Since its inception, the Blue Bag recycling program has been one of the least effective big-city recycling programs in the United States, with less than 10 percent of the waste collected and only 13 percent of the city’s households participating. Although there have been promises of change, only one ward has fully moved to curbside pickup.
Commitment to Green Technologies
Although Chicago has not met all its energy goals, it deserves credit for ambitious plans, creative initiatives and measurable progress. Chicago has done an excellent job in including citizen participation in manageable, small projects, and by showing leadership in employing green technology in large-scale citywide initiatives.
Sustainable Development
Chicago has done a commendable job incorporating green building practices in its own developments, convincing private developers to “go green,” and providing tools for homeowners to upgrade their property with greater environmental efficiency.
Chicago has taken the lead on many environmental issues. After years of miserable failure, the city finally scrapped the Blue Bag program and introduced a more efficient and effective curbside pick-up system. The city has been a regional leader in committing to green technologies. Although it has not reached its goals, it has made an excellent start and shown a true commitment to environmental consciousness. It has shown a similar good beginning and commitment in the area of environmentally sustainable development. Chicago is looking to both existing and emerging technologies to improve the environmental efficiency of its own operations, while setting an example for residents and businesses. Now it must continue in this direction while working to resolve neighborhood-based environmental problems.
Chicago has shown remarkable vision on many environmental issues. A regional leader in committing to green technologies that prompted the growth of a new local industry, it also has shown foresight in championing sustainable development.
City leaders recently faced up to the fact that their Blue Bag recycling program has been a failure, and OK’d development of what promises to be a more efficient curbside pick-up system in each ward. Unfortunately, this program won’t be enacted citywide for years to come.
The City of Chicago earns: B+
With a continued commitment to progress and a tightening of the pollution rules on the coal plants by the state, Chicago’s environmental future looks good.