Clean AirSpeaking of - | Home | Chicago State University · 2013-10-02 · The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Music 34 Ennio Morricone, Crime and Dissonance

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The Works

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Editorial cartoonists get pissed, A

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Speaking ofClean A

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December 16, 2005

Section One Letters 3ColumnsHot Type 4Editorial cartoonists take on the Tribune Company.

The Straight Dope 5What dangers lurk in the laundromat?

The Works 8“It’s funny how these mistakes generally workagainst old buildings.”

Chicago Antisocial 10Breakups and makeups

Architecture 12A church restored to its former glory, Mies the hypocrite, and more

The Sports Section 14Brett Favre, Scottie Pippen, and Frank Thomas

Our Town 16Advocate accused of favoring its suburbanhospitals; a blog about making out at work

ReviewsMovies 32The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, theWitch and the Wardrobe

Music 34Ennio Morricone, Crime and Dissonance

Theater 37Dessa Rose at Apple Tree

PlusWhat Are You Wearing? 20Mariah Colbert

Ink Well 39This week’s crossword: Reintegration

S hortly before the City Council’s 46-1 vote last week in favor of a phased-insmoking ban, Alderman Burton Natarus made a personal appeal to his col-leagues: “I hope you take me seriously,” he said.

That’s not always easy. In the last few council meetings Natarus has proposed asecond round of crackdowns on loud street musicians, wondered aloud at the appar-ent oddness of the Greek Orthodox calendar, and criticized the size and position ofAlderman Dorothy Tillman’s hat.

Most recently, of course, Natarus had worked on behalf of downtown bar andrestaurant owners to thwart the immediate complete ban on smoking continued on page 22

ON THE COVER: PAUL DOLAN (CLEAN AIR), ROBERT MURPHY (THE WORKS), GODFREY CARMONA (BOTTLES)

Speaking of Clean Air. . .Now that smoking’s bannedindoors, will our valiantrepresentatives crack down onthe people polluting the skies?Don’t hold your breath.

By Mick Dumke | Illustration by Paul Dolan

22 CHICAGO READER | DECEMBER 16, 2005 | SECTION ONE

in public buildings pushed byhealth committee chairman EdSmith. In the end they compro-mised. The Clean Indoor Air Actprohibits lighting up in restau-rants and other indoor publicplaces starting January 16 and inbars by the middle of 2008.

As Natarus made an offer ofsomething close to reconciliationto Smith and his colleagues, heurged the council to turn itsattention to other health andenvironmental problems, such as“earth warming.”

“The water is steaming up, andit’s causing hurricanes!” he warned.

But Natarus didn’t mention,and the council didn’t stop to pon-der, a much larger health issue—one that affects all Chicagoans, notjust those stuck breathing second-hand smoke. Under the new lawtavern owners can allow smokingif they can prove that ventilationsystems are cleaning the air insidetheir businesses to a point compa-rable with fresh air outdoors. Butthe air outside isn’t that great, andfor nearly four years Natarus andhis colleagues have been sitting onan outdoor clean-air ordinance

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continued from page 1

continued on page 24

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Ed Burke, Midwest Generation’s Fisk power plant in Pilsen

CHICAGO READER | DECEMBER 16, 2005 | SECTION ONE 23


that would clamp down on theregion’s single greatest source ofair pollution.

Across the city, the IllinoisEnvironmental ProtectionAgency regularly records ozonelevels higher than federal stan-dards permit for eight-hour peri-ods, and the federal governmenthas declared Chicago a “nonat-tainment” area for particulatematter, meaning the state has toreduce its dangerous concentra-tions by 2010 or face a loss offederal funds. When breathed,ozone—a key ingredient ofsmog—essentially scars the tis-sues of lungs, while particulates,or soot, can enter the blood-

stream and cause cancer. Bothhave been linked to higher ratesof fatal asthma and heart attacks.

For years, environmentalistshave blamed old, coal-basedpower stations—two of which,Midwest Generation’s Fisk andCrawford plants, are on thesouthwest side, in Pilsen andLittle Village—for producing asmuch as a quarter of the coun-

try’s nitrogen oxides, which formozone; two-thirds of its sulfurdioxide, the basis of soot; and athird of its airborne mercury,which eventually ends up inwaterways and fish. They pointout that a grandfather clause inthe federal Clean Air Act lets theChicago plants evade currentemissions standards, and notethat the longer the city and the

state wait to force them to cleanup, the more difficult it will be tomeet the 2010 deadline.

“Everybody’s still saying powerplants are part of the problem,”says Brian Urbaszewski, directorof environmental health pro-grams for the American LungAssociation of MetropolitanChicago. “Action has to comefrom local political leadership.”

Clean Air


The ordinance was sent to the energy and environmentcommittee, where it has since lain dormant. Why dependson who’s asked, with most of the parties involvedblaming someone else for holding up the measure.

In February 2002, finance com-mittee chairman Ed Burke

introduced the Chicago CleanPower Ordinance, citing aHarvard study showing that eachyear the two plants cause 2,800asthma attacks, 550 emergencyroom visits, and 41 deaths.

Burke’s legislation required thatthe Chicago plants slash emis-sions of nitrogen oxides, sulfurdioxide, and mercury, as well ascarbon dioxide, which contributesto global warming. In defiance ofthe Bush administration’s “capand trade” program, the measurealso sought to limit the plants’ability to buy “emission credits”from low polluters elsewhere. “Icontinued on page 26



believe it is our responsibility tostep forward and force coal-firedpower plants operating in ourbackyard to adhere to modernpollution control standards,” hesaid at the time.

But because the plants alsoemploy about 200 people andgenerate power for up to a mil-lion homes, Burke’s proposal didn’t win the support of MayorDaley, and as a result it didn’t getany traction in the council.Though environmentalists

argued the plants could stay openand use cleaner technology—such as converting to natural gasinstead of coal—MidwestGeneration said it couldn’t affordcostly upgrades. Burke’s ordi-nance sat for more than a year inthe Committee on Energy,Environmental Protection &Public Utilities, chaired byVirginia Rugai of the 19th Ward,while city officials started talkingwith Midwest Generation abouta compromise.

The city elections in February

2003 appeared to prod thosediscussions along briefly.Activists with the Pilsen Greensput nonbinding resolutions call-ing for stricter pollution stan-dards on ballots in two precinctsnear the plants. The resolutionswon the support of nearly nine ofevery ten voters. That May, withthe clean power proposal set toexpire under council “house-cleaning” rules, Burke reintro-duced it, and 25th Ward alder-man Danny Solis, whose turfincludes the Fisk Generating

Station and one of the precinctsthat endorsed cleaner emissions,signed on as a cosponsor.

The ordinance was again sentto Rugai’s energy and environ-ment committee, where it hassince lain dormant. Whydepends on who’s asked, withmost of the parties involvedblaming someone else for hold-ing up the measure. Rugai saysneither Burke nor Solis hadcalled it up again because thecity’s law department had raisedquestions about the legality of

the ordinance and the aldermenfeared Midwest Generationwould have to shut down. “Theywere concerned about putting anindustry out of business while, atthe same time, they want to lookout for the health of people nearthe plants,” she says. “It’s a lotlike the smoking ban.”

Donal Quinlan, Burke’s presssecretary, said Burke declined to comment.

Solis placed responsibility withDaley administration officials.

Clean Air


continued on page 28



Midwest Generation threatenedto close the plants, cut the jobs atthem, and sue the city for super-seding the federal Clean Air Act,he said, and the prospect of joblosses and expensive legal battleswarded the Daley administrationoff. “So the strategy right now,”he said, “is let’s negotiate.”

But that’s not how JenniferHoyle, a spokesman for the city’slaw department, explains it. Shesaid city attorneys weren’t wor-ried about a lawsuit; they simplytold the city’s Department ofEnvironment that the outcome ofone wasn’t certain because legalprecedent wasn’t clear. “Whetherwe could enact requirementsmore stringent than federal law—that was our primary concern,”Hoyle said. “It wasn’t a clean-cutissue for us, that we could say,‘Yes, we would definitely win,’ or,‘No, we would definitelylose.’ . . . We didn’t say, ‘Absolutelynot—it can’t be done.’”

Yet according to environmentcommissioner Sadhu Johnston,his department is waiting for adefinitive recomendation fromthe law department on how toproceed. “We at this point don’thave a position on the ordi-nance,” he says.

Meanwhile, Midwest Genera-tion describes its relationshipwith the city as cooperative andcordial. “I don’t know that nego-tiation is the word that I wouldchoose, but we are in constantconversation,” said Doug McFar-lan, the company’s vice presidentof public affairs. “The basis forour opposition to the ordinancehas never been about imposingadditional emissions reductions.It’s been how to accomplish that.”

Sulfur dioxide emissions havebeen reduced 30 percent andnitrogen oxides 60 percent overthe six years Midwest Generationhas owned the plants, McFarlansays. (He offered these same num-

Clean Air


continued on page 30 Midwest Generation’s Crawford power plant in Little Village

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bers to the Reader for a story twoyears ago.) The plants burn clean-er coal than they used to, he adds,and the Crawford GeneratingStation, in Little Village, has wonfederal funding to run a field testnext year on new technology tolower mercury pollution.

McFarlan emphasized that itwouldn’t be fair to imposetougher regulations on theChicago plants than on similarplants elsewhere because theenergy market is national, notlocal, with Midwest Generationin fierce competition with com-panies in other cities and states.“We have raised the question inearlier discussions with city offi-cials about the legality of the

ordinance,” he says. Litigation is a routine part of

the process of environmentalregulation, says the LungAssociation’s Urbaszewski. Hebelieves that local authoritieshave the right to make pollutioncontrols tighter than federallaw—and that they shouldbecause, though the plants maybe polluting less than they oncedid, they’re still causing serioushealth problems at a time tech-nology exists to make themcleaner. “Of course the city’sgoing to get sued [if it enacts theordinance],” he said. “That’s pret-ty much a no-brainer. I’m surethat any company required to dosomething would fight it. Thequestion is, does the city have the

right to do it, and do they havethe responsibility to do it, to pro-tect the people of the city ofChicago? It was the same issuewith the indoor air ordinance.”

If so, a pollution crackdowncould be several years, millionsof dollars, and hundreds ofdeaths away: the events that ledup to the smoking ban show thataldermen aren’t likely to moveon any health issue just becausethey should or could. They haveto be forced by voters—and givenpermission by Daley.

Burke proposed a smokingban a decade ago and it went

nowhere. Two years ago, mostpeople—including the majorityof aldermen and the mayor—

assumed a repeat effort wouldmeet a similar fate unless theyfought hard for it, so theAmerican Cancer Society,American Lung Association,American Heart Association, andother groups started a multimil-lion-dollar campaign.

For the first time in years,thousands of Chicagoans tookinterest in a council proposal.They barraged aldermanic officeswith phone calls while Smithpushed the ordinance forward inthe council. “I heard things frommy colleagues like ‘I’m gettinghammered on this,’” says ReyColon, the first-term aldermanfrom the 35th Ward. Adds MarkPeysakhovich, who regularly lob-bies the council as the senior

Illinois director of advocacy forthe American Heart Association:“I have never heard so many alder-men say, in speeches on the flooror in private conversations, thatthey have received so many calls.That’s got to say something—thosecame from real people.”

Key Daley aldermen say themayor initially didn’t think hehad any reason to expend politi-cal capital on the issue. On onehand, his friends and campaigndonors in the restaurant and barbusiness were against a full ban;on the other, health advocatesand progressive voters favored it.And if the proposal wasn’t goinganywhere, he had no need to takea side. While announcing that hethought bars should be exempt,

Clean Air



he mostly washed his hands ofthe matter, leaving the council inthe unusual, and uncomfortable,position of working things out onits own. “You’ve got to under-stand that this is not a legislativebody as we would normally thinkabout it, so it was new territoryfor them,” says Eric Adelstein, astrategist for the Cancer Societycampaign. “They were like, ‘Tellus what to do, tell us what to do.’”

That changed in the last coupleof weeks, when Daley’s own floorleader, 40th Ward aldermanPatrick O’Connor, announcedthat he’d lined up enough votesfor a full ban while Natarusappeared to be foundering in hismove for a compromise.

In response, Daley announcedthat he wanted a deal made to sat-isfy all sides. The mayor may beweakened from political scandal,and he may have underestimatedthe popular support for a ban,but once he spoke out, O’Connorand Smith couldn’t forge aheadwith a full ban anymore.

“When we got ready to godown to the wire, it appearedthat the mayor may be going tothe other side, and some people[in the council] got a littleshaky,” says Smith. “Do you takea chance of going for everythingand just coming out with noth-ing? We didn’t want to take thatchance, so it became a matter ofgetting as much as we could get.”

O’Connor maintains that he hadthe votes all along, but says itmade more political sense to passa law with a wide consensus. “Thisisn’t the only law the City Councilwas going to pass this year,” hesays. “You want to make it so thatpeople feel they were treated withrespect, and come back and live tolegislate another day rather thanram it down anyone’s throat.”

In other words, to pass any majorordinance, such as one cuttingdown on cancer-causing chemi-cals in the air outside, advocateshave to line up not the bare major-ity of 26 votes, but more like 40, sothat aldermen will have a politicalcushion—so that, in O’Connor’swords, they’ll feel “comfortable.”And the only way to do that is toget the mayor on board.

None of which bodes well for aclampdown on air pollution. Theadvocacy groups behind thesmoking ban would love to seesimilar movement on the CleanPower Ordinance, but none seemprepared—or wealthy enough—to mount another expensive cam-paign. “Right now I don’t have $4million,” says Urbaszewski.

While Smith says he wouldgladly work on the power plantsbill if Burke asked him to, andNatarus says he was, indeed,serious about embarking on awave of environmental activismin the council, their wards arenot where the power lies—liter-ally or politically.

Midwest Generation’s McFarlanmaintains that Burke’s bill is thewrong approach. “We don’t believethe ordinance is necessary becausewe are on the right track,” he said.And, in a perhaps more tellingstatement, he noted, “We knowthe Department of Environmentand the mayor and the city ofChicago are well aware of this.” v

Clean AirSpeaking of - | Home | Chicago State University · 2013-10-02 · The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Music 34 Ennio Morricone, Crime and Dissonance

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