Why a proposal for Peoria development is creating concerns about pollution
Multiple organizations focused on South Peoria and the environment are pushing for changes to a tax-increment financing district proposal.
Groups are worried that the Distillery TIF — which could spur a major expansion of Black Band — could also invite a new carbon dioxide pipeline from a company such as BioUrja, an ethanol plant that also falls within the boundaries.
Speakers from five different environmental and South Peoria organizations held a news conference on Thursday asking the Peoria City Council to include language in the TIF that prohibits funds from being used on a CO2 pipeline or any developments that would create new air and water pollution in the area.
The groups are not against the TIF itself or the Black Band expansion.
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"The last thing the south side of Peoria needs to worry about is a pipeline being built under where their kids go to school, where their kids go to sleep and this pipeline potentially bursting just from the ground shifting," said activist Warith Muhammad.
Muhammad spoke along with Joyce Harant of the Central Illinois Healthy Community Alliance; Martha Ross of Southside Community United for Change; Jonathan Thomas of the City and County Commission on Racial Justice and Equality; and Marvin Hightower of the NAACP.
Needed protections against a pipeline?
All the speakers echoed a similar sentiment: development in South Peoria is great, but new pollution is not.
"This area where people live is also designated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the state of Illinois as a environmental justice area, which means that special considerations should be given to these geographic areas because of the historic pollution burden people living in these areas have had for so many decades," Harant said.
Getting this language put into the TIF would not prevent BioUrja from building a CO2 pipeline, but it would prevent them from using TIF expenses to do so.
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Ross said the TIF language must include "full protections" against new state and federal approved air and water pollutions and CO2 pipelines. She said decisions like these are what can move South Peoria away from "effects of disenfranchisement."
"In my 44 years in the south side I have seen over and over again the impact of city decisions to bring in industries that hurt the quality of life or take down the quality of life in the south side," Ross said. "We do not have a grocery store, continue to live in the daily effects of disenfranchisement and added burdens of a more polluted environment."
Thomas, too, said that decades of "redlining" and city decisions still impact South Peoria today. He said the area has a lack of green spaces, parks and walkable amenities because of these decisions.
The speakers said instead they would like to use the TIF used to add green spaces, a grocery store and businesses.
"I am not sure about the area, but there is a lack of affordable housing — or I like to call it 'workforce housing,' — on the south side, period," Hightower said. "There is a lot of vacant lots. There definitely is a need for affordable or workforce housing. If this area is not the one, that ought to always be considered when considering a TIF or anything else as far as redevelopment on the south side."
The Peoria City Council will hold a public hearing about the TIF on Tuesday during its regular meeting.
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This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Distillery proposal creates pipeline worries in South Peoria
