The state’s top environmental official says the feds stopped oversight of the cleanup of an oily mess in a Chicago waterway before the job was done.
President Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency says that the cleanup should be finished by Gov. JB Pritzker’s administration and the company responsible for the spill of almost half a million gallons of liquid asphalt into the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.
In April, the EPA ordered Petroleum Fuel and Terminal Co. of Forest View to clean up the asphalt from the canal, noting that the substance was potentially harmful to humans and wildlife. The spill from the company’s nearby plant occurred in February, but the extent of the contamination was more apparent once the water warmed and the asphalt liquified.
James Jennings, who leads Pritzker’s environmental agency, wrote to the EPA’s regional administrator in Chicago earlier this month to say it is “troubling” for the federal oversight to end.
“This release impacted water quality over three miles downstream and has required treatment of dozens of animals,” he wrote. Among the animals treated were baby ducks and water snakes.
Jennings said the state will continue to help federal officials with remediation, but the EPA needs to continue to be the lead government body on the case until the work is completed.
“Asphalt is still present,” Jennings said. “The oversight work required by the [order] remains necessary and incomplete.”
He added that his agency “is not aware of any technical justification” for ending the order and said state officials have “deep concerns” about the decision to abandon the job and potentially end the order mandating that the company continue to clean up the canal and shoreline.
EPA Regional Administrator Anne Vogel responded by saying that her agency determined early this month that “significant work” had been completed to clean up the asphalt.
“The discharge no longer poses a substantial threat to the public health or welfare,” Vogel wrote in her letter to Jennings Monday.
The hot liquid asphalt entered the canal through storm drains via manhole covers that are now sealed, the EPA has said.
Officials with St. Louis-based Apex Oil Co., which owns Petroleum Fuel and Terminal, didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The company is expect to submit a final report on the cleanup at the end of December.
Apex will be responsible for all the costs related to the EPA’s removal of asphalt, according to the order from last spring. No dollar amount estimate has been made public so far.
In addition to oily sheen atop the water earlier this year, thick sludge from the canal’s shoreline had to be removed by workers, EPA photos show.
The discharge of the substance into the canal is a violation of the federal Clean Water Act, the EPA said in its order, adding that there was a “harmful quantity” of the oily substance. There have been no fines publicly announced, and the federal regulators still refer to Apex as a “potentially responsible party.”
The plant sits on 24 acres of land in Forest View leased from the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, the government body that manages the Chicago area’s sewer system.
Cameron Davis, an elected official with the district and a former senior adviser with the EPA, chided the federal agency’s decision to hand off oversight.
“The Trump administration is abandoning public and environmental health protection by bailing on its cleanup responsibilities before the job is done,” Davis said.
Vogel declined to comment beyond the statements in her letter to Jennings.
The canal is an almost 30-mile waterway that was created at the beginning of the 20th century to reverse the flow of the Chicago River away from Lake Michigan, the city’s drinking water source.
