Cheryl Johnson has been battling polluters around her Far Southeast Side community for most of her 64 years.
Now she’s making an impassioned plea to City Council members to give her some help even as business and union groups try to kill or weaken a plan to protect South Side and West Side neighborhoods from dirty industries.
“So our community doesn’t have a voice when we’re subjected to poison?” Johnson asked in an interview. “There’s a quality of life for people that should be available for all the people of Chicago.”
Johnson is pushing for an ordinance named after her late mother Hazel Johnson that would change the rules on how polluting businesses can locate in low-income communities of color. The proposed law would force the city to consider the health impact on neighborhoods, including Riverdale where Johnson lives, when new sources of pollution are added.
The ordinance was introduced in April, is backed by Mayor Brandon Johnson and is an outgrowth of a federal civil rights investigation that found the city has long discriminated against its own residents who live in neighborhoods overburdened by air pollution and other health threats.
In fact, the ordinance was part of an agreement the city made with the feds under former President Joe Biden.
Those communities have been the landing place for large industrial operators and heavy truck traffic supporting those industries.
Just last month, however, President Donald Trump said he won’t enforce the civil rights agreement with Chicago to change its zoning and land-use practices. Trump has said the feds have more pressing concerns.
That means Johnson and other environmental advocates have to persuade City Council members to support the ordinance that aims to fix the problem.
Alderpersons voted Thursday to move the measure to the Council’s zoning committee for debate.
The push to change city policy dates back at least seven years to when there was a plan to move a polluting scrap metal operator known as General Iron out of mostly white, wealthy Lincoln Park to a Southeast Side low-income Latino neighborhood surrounded by Black communities.
Uproar over the proposed General Iron move led to mass protests, a hunger strike, and ultimately, a federal civil rights complaint that ruled in favor of the community organizations that brought the allegations against city practices.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot denied the permit for the relocated General Iron operation even though it built a site at East 116th Street along the Calumet River. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development still wanted an assurance from Chicago officials that they would reform their policies and practices.
On her last day in office, Lightfoot signed an agreement with the Biden administration. Mayor Johnson has vowed to make changes that include health assessments on communities that would receive new sources of pollution in areas where air quality is already bad.
Another key change is an advisory board that would look at certain types of heavy industry that want to locate in what’s known as an “environmental justice” community. The board wouldn’t have decision-making power but would assess a polluter’s impact on health and environment and offer an opinion.
Once the would-be ordinance gets assigned to committee, advocates hope they have the votes to stave off a challenge from businesses and some unions who oppose the idea of an advisory board, among other portions of the ordinance.
The Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce is “strongly opposed” to the measure, according to a recent email sent to members. A smaller coalition of unions, developers and builders also is against the proposal.
The ordinance puts “additional obstacles in the way of job opportunities for workers,” the Chicago Federation of Labor, speaking for some of its trade union members, said in a statement to the Chicago Sun-Times. That said, the labor group said it wants to continue to negotiate with the city.
Cheryl Johnson, who runs People for Community Recovery founded by her mother, said community, environmental organizations and City Hall representatives have tried to negotiate with opponents but said she is skeptical that they will be satisfied until the proposed ordinance is severely watered down.
Previous City Hall efforts to curb air pollution have been weakened after lobbying by various interest groups.
“This is a classic example of what environmental racism looks like,” Johnson said.