Missing its own deadline Monday, the city yet again delayed a decision on the fate of a scrap metal shredder in Pilsen with a history of environmental violations. The permit is largely retroactive at this point, covering operations from 2021 to 2024, but the city’s inaction has left the shredder’s neighbors concerned for their health.
Sims Metal Management’s operating permit for its facility at 2500 S. Paulina St. expired in November 2021. A month earlier, it was sued by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul for failing to show it was reducing air pollution there. This came after Sims was fined in 2018 by the U.S. EPA for emitting high levels of harmful particulate matter.
Data from five EPA-mandated air pollution monitors installed in 2022 have consistently shown that pollution from the facility is below levels that would cause short- or long-term health consequences. The city is weighing this data heavily as it makes the permitting decision, Department of Public Health Commissioner Olusimbo Ige told concerned community leaders during a private meeting Friday.
The leaders asked for the Friday meeting after receiving an official notice that a decision would be announced Monday. But Monday came and went with no public announcement from the Department of Public Health.
On Monday evening, department spokesperson Grace Adams told the Tribune that the city required more time to evaluate Sims’ renewal application.
“In addition to a review of materials submitted as part of the application, all public comments submitted over the last three years and as part of dedicated public comment periods, including those made on the draft permit, are being reviewed and taken into consideration. These comments will be summarized as part of the responsiveness document used in the permit consideration process once a final decision is made,” Adams said in a written statement.
City ordinances have allowed the shredder to continue operating as the Public Health Department reviews Sims’ renewal application.
“An ordinary citizen living in the city of Chicago does not have the luxury of violating every rule and getting away with it,” said lifelong Pilsen resident and Southwest Environmental Alliance member Mary Gonzales, 83, during the Friday meeting. “I know you have to deal with the t-crossing and i-dotting of the permit but we’re much more concerned about the health and well-being of the people in the community.”
She and fellow activists had been calling on the city to withhold the permit until five additional air monitors ordered by the attorney general are fully installed and demonstrate the facility has reduced emissions in compliance with Illinois Pollution Control Board regulations.
Those monitors will be installed this month and data from them should be available in February, according to Ige.
“(The Pilsen shredder) is subject to higher scrutiny and that is why there are more monitors in this facility than there has ever been in any other facility that we are monitoring,” she said in an attempt to ease residents’ concerns Friday.
Residents, however, do not feel the facility was held to the same standards as a similar shredder proposed for the Southeast Side that was ultimately denied a permit.
The city is in an active legal battle with Reserve Management Group over that permit, raising questions among activists about whether they will approve Sims’ permit to avoid another lawsuit.
The city has said the permitting processes are fundamentally different. RMG’s permit was for a new facility. Sims has been operating in Pilsen since the 1990s so only needs a renewal permit.
An amended complaint filed by Raoul in 2023 argued that Sims actually should have filed for a construction permit a few years ago.
The company never sought a permit to construct a potentially polluting piece of machinery — a stationary shear — installed around 2020 and discovered by the EPA during a 2022 inspection. Instead, it tucked the new equipment into its pending operating permit.
Brian McKeon of Lucha por la Villita, a Little Village-based community organization, alleged the move encourages law-breaking, to which Ige responded, “I have taken this feedback and we will do better next time.”
Sims could not be reached for comment.
The fight against the scrap shredder is part of residents’ larger concern about the cumulative effects of a history of pollution. Pilsen, a predominately Latino neighborhood, is also home to a foundry accused of leaching lead into the air and an EPA Superfund site.
Following a federal probe into a pattern of heavy industry being directed to under-resourced neighborhoods that was sparked by RMG’s proposed shredder, the city completed a report on the pollution burden across Chicago.
Those findings, published last year, identified areas surrounding the Pilsen shredder as particularly burdened communities but will not be factored into the renewal decision.
“We do not require cumulative (impact) for renewal of a permit because we have the actual data,” Ige told residents Friday, referring to the information collected by the five operating air monitors.
Permitting is not the only mechanism the city has to monitor heavy industry. The city inspected the Pilsen shredder five times in 2023 and three times this year, according to the commissioner. It continues to have the authority to issue violations to Sims if new air quality data shows dangerous levels of particulate matter.
As the Public Health Department continues to evaluate the 2021 to 2024 permit, it is now also in the process of reviewing the permit for the Pilsen shredder’s 2025 to 2028 operations.
