Someone’s got to clean up the foul-smelling, toxic waterway in Little Village

Getting environmental justice can take decades. Just ask the folks in the working-class neighborhood of Little Village, who for years have endured the terrible stench emanating from the Collateral Channel, a slip of water that juts out from the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

They’re still waiting for a solution. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is now involved, and should deliver one, as speedily as possible. Because given how long residents have lived with the problem, it’s hard to disagree with what the then-executive director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization said 10 years ago:

“This would not be tolerated in more affluent communities.” 

The channel, mostly unused now, is about a quarter-mile in length and 100 feet wide near La Villita Park. Experts have said it is contaminated by cancer-causing chemicals and heavy metals. The water is stagnant and pungent. We’ve seen the chemical slicks on the surface. 

For part of the year, the channel is hidden from view by trees and brush at West 31st Street and South Albany Avenue. In the summer, it’s easy to miss, until you catch a whiff of the stench. 

We’ve smelled it. It brings to mind rotten eggs and tar. And the people who live nearby shouldn’t have to live with it, year after year. 

The federal EPA can order a clean-up, and should. As the Sun-Times’ Brett Chase reported this week, the EPA will decide in the next month how toxic and dangerous the channel is for the community and whether anyone is responsible for fixing it. 

But after a decade, the only question in our mind is: When does it get fixed? Not who does the fixing.

The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization turned to the EPA about a year ago after getting nowhere with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, which handles stormwater and treats sewer wastewater. The MWRD seems a good fit to handle remediation since the agency constructed the channel more than 100 years ago. Back then, the agency was called the Chicago Sanitary District.

For years, the agency demurred. In 2014, an MWRD spokeswoman told the Sun-Times the agency would “entertain partnerships” but could not take on the work alone. Recently, the MWRD told Chase it’s helping the EPA with its investigation but “bears no responsibility for this pollution,” though it “nevertheless has volunteered its technical assistance.”

The MWRD wants the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to handle remediation, but the Corps isn’t having it. 

It’s a good thing the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization hasn’t given up. The odor from the channel is no less rotten today than it was 10 or 20 years ago. We wonder if it’s worse. 

“If it’s not windy, you can smell everything,” a resident told the Sun-Times in 2014. “If there are dead animals in there, it’s worse.”

Fast forward 10 years and here’s what Esmeralda Arroyo, who lives near La Villita Park, told Chase: “During the summertime, when it gets hot, it smells really bad. It smells like rotting trash. You can smell it especially in the evenings. That’s when you smell it the most.” 

Some in the community have complained of headaches and nausea from the odors. Back in 2008, a group of researchers wrote that sediment in the channel was highly contaminated “at a level that is of significant concern for ecological health and human health.” 

A garbage hauler’s proposal for a nearby barge operation has been flagged by the Little Village group over worries about stirring up the sediment. 

Environmental cleanups are known for being long, drawn-out processes. We recall that various groups issued a joint report in June 2000 calling for disinfecting effluent going into Chicago waterways. It wasn’t until 2015 when the first sewage treatment plant started doing so. A second one started in 2016. A third plant, in Stickney, is not done.

The EPA should make sure the folks over in Little Village don’t have to wait that long.

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