Chicago's Coughin'
Coal-burning plants equal death and despair for low-income neighbourhoods
Kari Lyderson

Like many low-income and immigrant communities around the country, the Pilsen and Little Village neighborhoods in Chicago lie in the shadow of various belching smokestacks. Two of the most prominent ones are the Fisk and Crawford coal-burning power plants, which supply 4,800 megawatts of electricity a day to the city.

The smoke from the plants is as ever-present as the sun or the moon for the residents of these neighborhoods, whose streets, lined with vibrant small businesses and street vendors, could almost be taken straight from cities or towns in Mexico. Residents often comment on the color and consistency of the smoke on any given day, or the chalky or gray residue it sometimes leaves on their cars.

Every year over 40 Pilsen and Little Village residents die premature deaths because of these smokestacks, according to a 2001 study by the Harvard School of Public Health. The study also blames the two power plants for over 550 emergency room visits and over 2,800 asthma attacks. In the state of Illinois, 1,700 deaths and over 21,000 asthma attacks are attributed to coal-burning power plants like these.

Just as the power plants are an ever-present part of life in Pilsen and Little Village, so is asthma. Almost any resident will tell you that they have asthma, or that a number of their relatives and friends do. Carmen Velasquez, director of the local Alivio Medical Center clinic, said they see an extremely high number of asthma cases.

Miguel and Gladys Martinez are just two of the many residents who struggle with asthma on a daily basis. Though neither of them have asthma, all three of their young children have severe cases. They say three-year-old Alexis, four-year-old Michael, and five-year-old Ariel can’t even play normally without wheezing, and they are sick almost constantly. They used to have to take Michael to the emergency room almost twice a week; since they got a nebulizer machine at home they don’t have to go quite as often.

“Michael’s the worst. We really worry about him,” said Gladys, 22, a supervisor at a thrift store. “He has trouble breathing and has a runny nose 24-7, even in the summer.”

Though they have lived in the neighborhood for years, they said the children’s asthma got even worse when they moved to a home only two blocks from the Fisk power plant. This backs up a statement in the Harvard study, which noted severity of respiratory symptoms correlates directly with exact distance from the plants.

Maria Castro, a 24-year-old University of Illinois at Chicago student who grew up in the neighborhood, also blames her asthma on the plants.
“I’ve always had colds and when I was 17 I was diagnosed with asthma,” said Castro. “My cousin in the neighborhood has asthma too and the kids downstairs are always sick. Before I never thought about it that much, but then I read about Love Canal and started wondering, Maybe [the plant] has something to do with it.”

The Harvard study is one of several recent works that have directly linked coal-burning plants to the health problems of nearby residents. Another recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found a direct link between coal-burning emissions — specifically fine particulate matter — and increased deaths from lung cancer. But coal-burning plants remain the most popular form of power generation in the country, for the simple reason that they are the most profitable.

Susan Gallagher, a spokesperson for the AmEren Energy Generating Company, which runs a host of plants in the Midwest, said that while nuclear and hydro power plants are cheaper to run, they involve more logistical considerations and complications. Natural gas is much cleaner to burn than coal, but also much more costly and less efficient.

“Coal is our least expensive and most efficient source by a long shot,” said Gallagher, noting that about two percent of the company’s energy comes from hydropower and 66 percent from coal-burning plants.
In Chicago, there is a movement to force the Fisk and Crawford plants to convert to burning natural gas. In fact, a city ordinance has been proposed that would set emissions limits which the plants could most likely only meet by changing to natural gas. Midwest Generation, the company that runs the two plants, says this would be financially impossible and would cause the plants to shut down. But Brian Urbaszewski, director of environmental health for the Chicago area office of the American Lung Association, says the company could make the conversion if it wanted to.

“Midwest Generation paid a lot of money for these plants and they want to recoup it,” Urbaszewski said. “The way to do that is to run them as cheaply as possible. The problem is, there is always a cost. Does the company pay the cost for cleaning up the plant, or does the public pay the cost in increased health costs, pain and suffering?”

This pain and suffering is evident all over the neighborhood, and as in most low-income areas where power plants are located, it hits the people least likely to have health insurance.

“We heard some harrowing tales,” said Dorian Breuer, a member of the Pilsen/Southwest Side local of the Chicago Green Party who did extensive organizing in support of the city’s proposed clean power ordinance. “There was one lady in her 50s who lived close to the power plant her whole life. She was recovering from two bouts with cancer and she’s an asthma victim. She really tied her illness to the plant.”

Most coal-burning plants are exempt from meeting the Clean Air Act of 1970, since a 1977 amendment to the Act grandfathers in plants built before that year. The plants only have to meet the clean air standards if they do massive renovations beyond “routine maintenance” on their equipment. Theoretically, these renovations would have to be made within the coming years by all the plants, meaning that within the next few decades they would all have to meet clean air standards.

But now President Bush is in the process of gutting the Clean Air Act, according to environmental experts.

His proposed Clear Skies Initiative, touted as an environmental measure by his administration but widely criticized by clean air proponents, would effectively make the exemptions on coal-burning plants permanent by expanding the definition of routine maintenance to include even ongoing multimillion dollar upgrades and expansions.
“What Bush is saying is that everything is routine maintenance, so you can rebuild a plant piece by piece and call it routine maintenance and not have to meet pollution controls,” said Urbaszewski.

Utilities deregulation which has taken place state by state over the last few years has also greatly complicated the struggle to protect clean air. In the past the same company that supplies electricity to homes would also be running the power plants. But now, usually one company runs the plants, another one buys the power and yet another one owns the lines which the power runs through and sells it to customers. For example in Chicago, Midwest Generation runs the plants, Exelon Corporation buys the power and ComEd distributes it to customers.

In the past, state or city regulations could have forced clean air standards on the whole industry at once. Now, clean air regulations of the kind proposed in Chicago could force any given plant to clean up its act, but if the renovations needed for the clean-up cause the power plant to have to raise its prices for electricity, the company that actually buys the electricity can just go elsewhere for its power.

“It’s a competitive market,” said Doug McFarlan, spokesman for Midwest Generation. “If our power is too expensive, they can just go out of state to buy it.”

In Pilsen and Little Village, few residents understand all the technical and economic ins and outs of corporate mergers and coal-burning technology. But they know their kids are coughing and wheezing more than they should be.

“Look how many schools we have right in this area. This is a whole generation being affected,” said Rosario Rabiela, co-owner of a Pilsen restaurant. “We’re going to war against someone making chemical weapons, yet our government is supporting these plants. They’re talking about disarmament — disarm this stuff!”