Clean Power Lake County, through its advocacy as well as its organizational efforts, and the Brushwood Center, with its emphasis on using the arts and science to enhance health equity, are now collaborating to pursue environmental justice in Waukegan and northeast Lake County.
Celeste Flores, the co-chair of Clean Power Lake County, said cities like Waukegan, with five Superfund sites and a decommissioned coal-burning power plant with residue still there, is an environmental justice community, as is Zion with nuclear waste from a closed plant still buried.
“Everyone, no matter where they live or what resources they have, should have access to clean air, clean water and clean soil,” Flores said.
Catherine Game, the executive director of the Brushwood Center, said the purpose of the two organizations mesh well. They have partnered together in the past, and their plan to share a joint office in Waukegan is a natural extension of the partnership.
“There is a disproportionate impact of environmental justice here,” Game said. “Clean Power Lake County organizes in Waukegan and other places at the grassroots. Brushwood collaborates by bringing art and a cultural impact.”
Clean Power Lake County and the Brushwood Center opened a joint office on Sept. 21 in downtown Waukegan, where they will work together and independently to enhance environmental justice throughout Lake County.
With a pair of offices, a community room and space for office equipment, Game said there will be an opportunity to work with people in the community, artists and other partners to “support a cleaner and healthier” northeast Lake County. The office will be permanently staffed.
After its founding in 2013, Flores said Clean Power Lake County operated out of a church in Waukegan, but has not had a permanent location since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Partnering with Brushwood on projects in the past, the move was a natural fit.
A focus of the new office for Clean Power Lake County is developing its youth program. Flores said the organization hires summer interns who are in high school or college to teach them environmental justice issues and get them involved.
“We want to make sure we get people in the younger generation involved, and teach them about environmental justice,” Flores said. “It’s important for them to educate their peers.”
Eduardo Flores — no relation to Celeste Flores — is Clean Power’s co-chair. A 2020 graduate of Waukegan High School and currently a student at College of Lake County, heads the youth education program.
Though he helped to restart the Environmental Club while he was in high school and appreciates its efforts to get the community to plant trees, Eduardo Flores said environmental science is not sufficiently taught to young people. He would like to see it offered through a state mandate.
“There has not been enough taught about the environment,” Eduardo Flores said. “People need to learn more about it so they can make decisions that are good for the environment and everyone here.”
Once motivated by pollution spewed from Waukegan’s coal-burning power plant north of downtown on the lakefront, Celeste Flores said Clean Power Lake County organized against it. When it learned factories in Waukegan and Gurnee were emitting Ethylene Oxide (EtO), they worked to reduce that as well.
Now decommissioned, Flores said the organization is working with elected officials to have the power plant’s remaining coal ash removed. Clean Power also worked with federal, state and local officials for better EtO monitoring.
Waukegan Mayor Ann Taylor, who was at the opening, said dealing with the coal ash from the electricity generation station is a key issue for her. She has lobbied the Illinois General Assembly in Springfield on the issue.
“We want to make sure our young people are good stewards of the environment and socially aware, so they can bring environmental justice to our community,” Taylor said.
State Rep. Rita Mayfield, D-Gurnee, introduced legislation in 2022 and again the following year to require NRG, the owner of the decommissioned power plant, to remove the two remaining coal ash ponds. She hopes to muster the needed votes before the current legislative session ends in January.
“We’re five votes short,” Mayfield said. “We’ve got a truncated veto session in the fall. Hopefully, we can make it happen. If we have to reintroduce it in the next session, we’ll do that.”