Illinois sues Hilco over smokestack demolition in Little Village

Attorney General Kwame Raoul accused Hilco, MCM Management Corp. and Controlled Demolition Inc. of violating state air pollution laws.

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Dust cloud from a smokestack implosion blankets Little Village on April 11, 2020.

A dust cloud from a smokestack implosion blanketed part of Little Village on April 11.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times file

Hilco Redevelopment Partners and its demolition contractor were accused Tuesday of causing air pollution that endangered Little Village residents while knocking down the 95-year-old smokestack at the site of a former coal-fired power plant.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul sued Hilco, MCM Management Corp. and Controlled Demolition Inc. for violating state pollution laws. The attorney general also demanded the companies immediately take corrective action.

On April 11, armed with a city demolition permit Ald. Mike Rodriguez (22nd) claims he once tried to stop, the Hilco subcontractor demolished the smokestack on the site of the closed Crawford power plant. A giant plume of dust rained down on the community, making it difficult to breathe during a coronavirus pandemic. Homes, vehicles, streets and sidewalks were left filthy.

In an aerial video shot by a Little Village resident and reviewed by the attorney general’s office, a “truck can be seen spraying water at the lower portions of the cloud, having no effect on its dispersion,” the lawsuit stated.

Residents can be seen in the video “walking through opaque clouds of particulate matter,” the lawsuit stated.

“The defendants failed to take adequate precautions to minimize the dispersion of particulate matter from the felling of the smokestack. These precautions included adequately wetting the area around the smokestack and, in particular, the area where the smokestack hit the ground,” the lawsuit said.

“The particulate matter that was generated … threatened the health of the surrounding community, caused fear and anxiety in the community and unreasonably interfered with the use and enjoyment of residents’ life and property.”

Asked about the lawsuit, Hilco said: “We continue to have an open and productive dialogue with authorities and look forward to bringing this to an appropriate resolution.”

Rodriguez called the lawsuit a pivotal step to “restore justice” to Little Village residents.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has designated the neighborhood surrounding the Crawford plant as an “area of environmental justice concern” because it has a “percentage of low-income and/or minority residents that is greater than twice the statewide average.”

In a news release, Raoul accused Hilco of compromising air quality “at a time when we are urging residents to remain in their communities to minimize the spread of a deadly respiratory disease.”

Kim Wasserman, executive director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, welcomed Raoul’s entry into the controversy. But she contended the attorney general’s lawsuit should have included one more defendant: the city of Chicago.

“They had a permit. Somebody signed off, and said, ‘Yes, you can implode on Holy Saturday. Everything you’re doing meets whatever requirements they have.’ Somebody, somewhere allowed that to happen and it didn’t happen. So the city, just like Hilco, bears responsibility in this matter,” Wasserman said.

“If Hilco or the city didn’t require them to have air monitoring stations, if the city required them to have water canons and they didn’t use them, what else didn’t they do?”


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