In the rush to build mammoth distribution centers across the region, local officials are overlooking the obvious — These mega-logistics centers are exposing nearby residents and workers to increasing pollution.
Construction of freight warehouses with large numbers of loading docks and spaces for truck parking has mushroomed since the pandemic to fill the need of the e-commerce industry to provide consumers with goods in a timely manner. Several logistics centers are near completion in Gurnee, Libertyville and Vernon Hills.
Farther south in Glenview, alongside the Tri-State Tollway, the 232-acre former Allstate Insurance Co. site has been leveled and is being turned into the mixed-use Logistics Campus, with 10 buildings planned to provide more than 3.2 million square feet of space. A similar plan to turn the former Caremark building off the Tri-State, south of Willow Road, has been put on hold for the time being.
Opponents of last year’s proposal to repurpose the Baxter International headquarters in unincorporated Lake County, between Deerfield and Riverwoods, also off the Tri-State, were on to something in their fight against logistics sprawl. They complained of heavy-duty truck pollution and noise invading their quiet suburban neighborhood. Plans were eventually scrapped, and Baxter is holding on to the 101-acre campus.
But a new nationwide environmental study, released late last month, outlines what appear to be serious health concerns caused by the increasing build-out of logistics complexes not only in Chicagoland, but across the U.S. The study, authored by researchers from the Milken Institute of Public Health at George Washington University in the nation’s capital and funded by NASA, points out the transportation infrastructure needed to ship goods to warehouses and then to consumers is enormous.
Indeed, researchers note Amazon operated 175,000 delivery vans and more than 37,000 semis in 2021 alone. Some of those vehicles are at the company’s giant warehouses in Waukegan off Route 43 (Waukegan Road) on the city’s far west side, and next to a large apartment complex. The company also has a distribution hub just north of the state line off Interstate 94 in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, a community loaded with logistics centers.
According to authors of the study, those trucks are emitting 20% more traffic-related air pollutants, such as nitrogen dioxide, which aggravates sufferers of asthma and can cause other life-threatening health conditions. While warehouses are located all over the U.S., the study reveals 20% are concentrated in just 10 counties, including Cook.
Other states with large footprints of logistics centers include California (in the counties of Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernadino); Harris County (Houston), Texas; Miami-Dade in Florida; Maricopa County (Phoenix) in Arizona; and Cuyahoga County (Cleveland), Ohio.
Earlier studies have looked at warehouses and pollution in specific neighborhoods around the country, but authors of the new report say people living near massive logistics centers — usually people of color — are exposed to higher-than-average levels of damaging pollutants linked to the industry.
“Increased truck traffic to and from these recently built large warehouses means people living downwind are inhaling an increased amount of harmful nitrogen dioxide pollution,” Gaige Kerr, lead author of the study and an assistant research professor of environmental and occupational health at GWU, said in a statement. “Communities of color are disproportionately affected.”
The study found that the proportion of Hispanic and Asian people living close to the largest clusters of warehouses is about 250% higher than the average nationwide. Warehouses with more loading docks and parking spaces attract the most traffic, and are associated with the highest nitrogen dioxide levels.
Yet, those in the warehouse industry maintain that placing logistics buildings close to residential areas, in redeveloped office complexes lacking employees working from home or remote, is a good strategy which leads to cheaper delivery costs. After all, they say, it is online shoppers who are the ones demanding ever-faster home deliveries.
With suburban office vacancies rising, including at some of the warehouse hubs, battles over placement of logistics centers aren’t going away soon. Authors of the pollution study say their research shows the need for regulations for increased use of zero-emission vehicle use in the industry.
There also needs to be a state or regional approach when developers approach communities to turn what were once former office campuses into warehouse districts. Pollutants just don’t hover over a logistics center as trucks idle; they drift across county and state lines.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
X: @sellenews
