We’ve seen this movie before: A Fortune 500 company pulls out of a town and leaves a polluted landscape behind. The only question: Who will play the Erin Brockovich character?
Perhaps it will be Dulce Ortiz, a co-founder of Clean Power Lake County and a Waukegan Township trustee, who has hounded NRG Energy Inc., owners of the latent generating station on the city’s lakefront, to remove the toxic and slushy coal ash from ponds on site.
The Houston-based company, which had net income in the first quarter of the year of $511 million, has refused.
Instead, according to a senior manager, NRG wants to cap two of the ponds which are about a football field away from the waters of Lake Michigan, the main source of drinking water for most Lake County residents.
Indeed, NRG is so flush it is spending $950 million to repurchase stock at an average price of $50.43 a share, according to the company’s announcement of first-quarter earnings earlier this month.
“Saying capping in place is ridiculous,” Ortiz told Steve Sadin in a front-page News-Sun story last week. “They’ll pollute our water and our soil, and they won’t be accountable. There is already groundwater contamination, and capping in place will only make it worse. They’re hypocrites, and they don’t want to be held accountable.”
Those words echo from the Erin Brockovich we all came to know via the 2000 award-winning film of the same name. The movie “Erin Brockovich” won an Academy Award for actor Julia Roberts, who played the title character.
Environmental investigator Brockovich traced illnesses linked to hexavalent chromium, a chemical used by California power generator Pacific Gas & Electric Co., in a cooling tower system from 1952 to 1966 to fight corrosion, reports have detailed.
The wastewater from the system was pumped into unlined ponds in the middle of the Mojave Desert near the community of Hinkley, Calif.
Sound familiar?
It was then no surprise that groundwater was contaminated and began causing cancer-causing illnesses among the well-using populace near the toxic ponds. The company eventually settled with residents, paying out millions of dollars to those affected.
Still, NRG merely wants to cap the lethal ponds, claiming it is environmentally sound and safer for the public. “There are a number of risks associated with removing the coal ash including the risk for exposure to people, the environment and our community,” a senior communications manager told Sadin.
At the same time, Larry Coben, NRG chair, interim president and CEO, reported in the quarterly financial that, “NRG continued to deliver exceptional operating and financial results during the first quarter of 2024.”
So the company has the cash to remove the contaminated soils from the property.
Besides Ortiz, Waukegan officials want the noxious ponds to disappear, as do Illinois lawmakers representing the city in the legislature. Indeed, state Rep. Rita Mayfield of the 60th House District and state Sen. Adriane Johnson, D-Buffalo Grove, have filed bills in Springfield to have the coal ash dispatched. U.S. Rep. Brad Schneider, D-Deerfield, also is on board for cleanup of the entire site.
Even the company’s policy statements lean on ecological stewardship: “Integrating environmental considerations into strategic and operational decisions is of vital importance to us, and we are committed to operating in an environmentally responsible manner and in compliance with all applicable environmental requirements.
“Our Environment-Over-Production policy sets a clear understanding that environmental compliance takes precedence over production,” according to the NRG website.
So, what’s the problem?
The company continues to stick with the idea that capping the ponds and monitoring them is a quicker solution, with less risk of groundwater pollution. Also, company officials contend, fewer trucks would be moving coal ash to industrial landfills far from the drinking water source for 6.5 million Illinoisans.
Sewage from portable commodes being used this summer for various community festivals and from septic tanks in rural neighborhoods is carted all across Lake County via tanker trucks, euphemistically called “honey wagons,” to treatment facilities.
So we’re sort of used to seeing contaminated stuff travel around the county via trucks. Is coal ash more toxic than raw sewage?
This isn’t a lone Waukegan issue. This affects the entire region. It also has a bearing on the revitalization of the city’s lakefront and downtown.
NRG needs to be a good corporate citizen and take responsibility for its legacy pollution. Who knows if NRG will be around in 10, 25 or 50 years, or it is swallowed in a leveraged buyout? In the meantime, heavy metals could begin leaching into groundwater on their property along the Big Lake’s fragile shoreline.
If NRG doesn’t want to own up to its environmental responsibilities, then state and federal officials must force them. The Illinois Pollution Control Board already has cited NRG for one instance of groundwater contamination.
The office of Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul needs to become involved to prod the company and seek environmental justice for city residents. Before the next Superfund site is left within Waukegan’s city limits.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
Twitter: @sellenews