A bit of well-deserved relief may be soon headed to Little Village residents whose neighborhood was left coated in potentially toxic dust because of the botched demolition of a 400-foot coal plant chimney in 2020.
Hilco Redevelopment and its contractors will shell out some $12.25 million as part of a proposed federal class-action lawsuit settlement, the Sun-Times’ Brett Chase reported last week. We’re calling it “a bit” of relief because millions won’t go far for potentially 90,000 residents eligible for a payout of up to $500 each.
That’s something, but not a lot when an entire neighborhood was coated in dust that made it hard to breathe. Imagine if a person had asthma or a similar health condition.
A final approval hearing for the suit will be held in federal court on April 22.
The April 11, 2020, demolition of the shuttered Crawford coal-fired electrical power station smokestack was an embarrassment to both Hilco and the city. Contractors who demolished the station at 3501 S. Pulaski Road imploded the facility’s chimney, raising a thick cloud of dust.
The lawsuit that led to the settlement notes the dust “coated dozens of properties and personal property throughout the neighborhood, reducing their value and requiring extensive remediation.” Even more alarming, the “toxic plume caused the residents of Little Village difficulty breathing and it has had and will have a pronounced effect on their health in the future,” according to the suit.
The city could have helped avoid this catastrophe — which only adds insult to injury — and that’s a lesson for the current and future administrations. Officials under then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot had plenty of warnings the demolition would turn out badly but did little to make sure it didn’t, according to a Chicago Inspector General’s Office report.
“I don’t know if a lawsuit can ever give closure, but we hope it will go a long way,” said Scott Rauscher, a lawyer for the three Little Village residents who filed the suit.
We hope so, too. The settlement won’t leave residents rolling in dough. But kudos to Little Village and its community activists, who pushed relentlessly, and rightly, to hold Hilco and the city accountable.
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