Government officials will investigate a contaminated waterway in Little Village to determine if it should be cleaned up under the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program for hazardous waste sites.
After a preliminary evaluation of the collateral channel located below La Villita Park at 31st Street and Albany Avenue, EPA will further investigate within the next two years to determine if an environmental remediation is needed, the agency confirmed Tuesday.
The evaluation “can be a multistep, multiyear process,” EPA said in a statement to the Sun-Times. After that, the agency will decide whether a cleanup is warranted and who would possibly pay for it.
The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization asked the EPA to investigate the channel, which connects to the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal, citing previous studies finding heavy metal contaminants and cancer-causing chemicals. The water also emits methane and other gases.
Neighbors also complain of headaches and nausea caused by putrid smells from the water, especially during warm weather.
The Little Village group has said the government body that treats Chicago area sewer wastewater and manages stormwater, known as the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, should be responsible for cleaning the waterway.
The district, which built the channel and canal in the late 1800s, has said it shouldn’t bear the cost. The canal was built to reverse the flow of the Chicago River away from Lake Michigan, which supplies the city’s drinking water. The canal opened in 1900.
The group that petitioned EPA said it initially tried to negotiate with the district to address the toxic problem.
Little Village organizers “attempted to sort out solutions to the collateral channel through direct discussions with MWRD over the course of years,” said the group’s lawyer, Keith Harley, who said district officials “then abruptly walked away.”
The appeal to EPA was necessary because “the community needed to devise a new strategy” to address the problem, Harley said.
He said timing of the waterway investigation may benefit from money flowing into Superfund from large federal infrastructure and economic stimulus laws passed in recent years.
District officials previously acknowledged the toxic issues with the quarter mile-stretch of water.
“We will continue to assist the U.S. EPA in any additional assessment of the collateral channel and stand ready to support our federal, state and local partners in evaluating options for the waterway’s future,” the district said in a statement.
The concern over the cleanup has had an impact on plans by garbage hauler LRS, which has proposed a barge operation that would load trash from a site near the channel where it meets the shipping canal.
Last month, LRS, which has been monitoring the plans for the channel, said it hoped the environmental agency would find a solution “best for both the Little Village community and the environment.”
