Fight over General Iron shows why city must confront environmental racism

We couldn’t agree more with your Nov. 18 editorial, which stated the city should not issue a permit allowing Reserve Management Group to move General Iron’s metal-shredding operation from Lincoln Park to South Deering. General Iron has been, as you say, a “historically bad actor.”

But Friends of the Parks would urge the city to go even further and address the inherent environmental racism that has plagued our Black and Brown neighborhoods for decades. It isn’t just this one move. Little Village, McKinley Park, South Deering and Riverdale are some of the most polluted communities in the city, but not the only ones on the South and West sides.

Friends of the Parks has a stake in environmental justice. Chicago sets aside open land for parks to provide recreation, refuge and respite. But polluted parks offer little of those ideals. The South Deering site RMG plans to use is a short walk from Rowan Park. And Finkl Steel, another refugee from Lincoln Park as the city cleared the way for the Lincoln Yards development, moved its operations to Burnside, a predominantly Black neighborhood. The plant is within a couple blocks of Burnside and Byrnes parks.

This is nothing new in Chicago, but it needs to stop. We are calling for a process that ends in new policies to bring clean, green investment into the communities that need it the most, while ensuring that those communities don’t have to endure poison air and water as a price for jobs and resources.

We can start with public hearings so the voice of the people is prominent. And let’s end with a process that heads us towards environmental justice. It’s time to for us to move beyond the choice between clean air or adequate revenue. We need a city where people of color don’t have to choose between having a job or breathing poisons.