Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker won’t proceed with Chicago migrant camp because of environmental concerns

CHICAGO — Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration moved to officially scrap Mayor Brandon Johnson’s plan to build a migrant camp on a controversial Southwest Side lot, the state announced Tuesday morning while issuing a scathing rebuke of the city’s evaluation of the land’s potential environmental hazards.

In a statement, Pritzker’s office said an Illinois Environmental Protection Agency review of the city’s environmental report — which was released late Friday evening — indicates “concerns related to insufficient soil sampling and remediation.”

But because the time required for additional testing and remediation would be extensive, the state “will not proceed” with the base camp, the state said.

“My administration is committed to keeping asylum-seekers safe as we work to help them achieve independence,” Pritzker said in a statement. “We will not proceed with housing families on a site where serious environmental concerns are still present. My administration remains committed to a data-driven plan to improve the asylum-seeker response and we will continue to coordinate with the City of Chicago as we work to expand available shelter through winter.”

Pritzker’s move to countermand Johnson’s migrant camp plan leaves the governor firmly in charge of dealing with the situation, for better or worse. And it finds the mayor being forced to react to the governor’s handling of a crisis within Chicago’s borders, a reversal of the usual political power dynamic.

Last Friday, the city released a nearly 800-page report by outside contractor Terracon Consultants that said high levels of mercury and other chemicals were found and are being removed from the Brighton Park lot at 3710 S. California Ave.

Workers had already begun building the giant tents for incoming migrants last week despite mounting concern from environmental advocates who argued for weeks that the property’s long history of industrial uses meant its soil was likely contaminated and unsafe for people to reside on. Johnson’s administration maintained late Friday it was confident in moving ahead with placing a migrant camp there.

“With the limited soil removal and placement and maintenance of the barrier, the site is safe for temporary residential use,” the mayor’s office had said.

The state had reservations, however, and paused construction on the site Sunday after Pritzker’s office expressed frustration at their own wait for the report’s release, even as the state was supposed to cover the cost of setting up and operating the tent encampment.

The base camp in question was expected to hold about 2,000 asylum-seekers and was slated to open its doors perhaps this month to become the city’s first government-run camp for new arrivals as they wait for beds inside brick-and-mortar shelters.

Pritzker on Tuesday said an upcoming 200-bed brick-and-mortar shelter at the former CVS at Little Village will be used instead, along with possible options within the Archdiocese of Chicago network.

“IEPA would not approve the proposed Brighton Park site for residential use, based on our regulatory standards for remediation of contaminated properties,” Illinois EPA Director John Kim wrote in a statement. “The well-being of residents and workers at the site is our highest priority, and current and planned site conditions do not adequately reduce risks of human exposure to known and potential environmental conditions.”

The mayor has grappled with complaints that his administration has not properly updated community stakeholders on the process of preparing the 38th and California site, anxieties that were compounded when the hefty environmental report was at first only provided Friday evening to those who made a public records request — and after construction had already commenced.

Johnson for his part has promised complete transparency and reminded the public he is in a race to house hundreds of migrants sleeping out in the cold before another punishing round of snowfall and subfreezing temperatures arrives.

But last week’s environmental report that had been weeks in the making revealed chemicals were present, according to the company hired by the city to assess the viability, though Johnson’s office said those concerns will be mitigated.

“According to the report, soil with mercury levels was identified at one location and was removed and properly disposed off-site at a landfill,” Johnson’s office said. “Likewise, soil with a high level of a semivolatile compound was identified at another location, and will be removed and disposed of off-site.”

The Terracon report said in the “one sample location” where high mercury exposure was detected, “The soil surrounding this sample was excavated and properly disposed off-site at a landfill,” while the spots with excess amounts of bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate, a chemical used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC), “will be remediated via excavation and landfill disposal.”

In addition, high levels of “semivolatile organic compounds (SVOCs)” and four metals were also found and required workers to ensure “the placement of imported clean stone from a quarry and compaction of the stone to a minimum thickness of six inches throughout the site. The stone layer will be periodically inspected and maintained.”

The mayor’s office said the investigation entailed “soil sampling, groundwater sampling, and soil gas sampling which yielded soil analytical results, groundwater analytical results, and soil gas analytical results.”

But the IEPA analysis of the environmental report said the consultant’s investigation entailed a “limited nature and insufficient number of soil borings” as well as shoddy remediation work that fell short of state standards, Pritzker’s administration said Tuesday.

“The remediations implemented thus far do not satisfy IEPA standards and are insufficient,” the state said. “At a minimum, an expanded engineered barrier between contaminated soil and human exposure would need to be installed to address exposure concerns. Further investigation might also identify additional contamination that would require additional remediation.”

Reaching for comment Tuesday, local Alderperson Julia Ramirez, 12th, said she was relieved at the news but hopes the Johnson administration learned a valuable lesson on responding to environmental concerns before proceeding with any construction.

“For us, it was a concern that they were constructing even before the environmental report,” said Ramirez, who long opposed the city’s rollout of the now-scuttled base camp. “What’s really important is that when they’re looking at other lots ... that we would have done this over, what, a month and a half ago, two months ago, and have that conversation, done the environmental report, before proceeding with any other work.”

While the city works to identify an alternate location for the tent encampment, the Illinois Department of Human Services is working with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago to evaluate a handful of buildings for potential use as additional shelter sites, Pritzker spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said Tuesday.

The state got behind the tent encampment concept because it presented the opportunity to shelter a large number of people relatively quickly before winter weather set it, but with fewer migrants at police stations and O’Hare International Airport awaiting placement, other options may be able to fill the gap, Abudayyeh said.

“We’re open to any sort of shelter solution,” she said.

State officials are working to determine whether the properties offered by the archdiocese would be suitable and what kind of work would be needed to make them habitable, Abudayyeh said.

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