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South Shore residents urge Cook County to press for transparency, health safeguards at Quantum Campus brownfield site
Summary
Residents and community groups testified at the Cook County Board meeting that the proposed Quantum/IQM Psi campus on the former U.S. Steel South Works site poses unresolved contamination risks. Speakers asked the county to insist on transparent sampling, remediation records and protections during construction.
Community members told the Cook County Board on Feb. 5 they are worried the planned Quantum microelectronics campus on the former U.S. Steel South Works brownfield could harm public health unless agencies, developers and the county increase transparency and remediation actions.
Ann Holcomb, co-chair of ETHOS of South Shore, told the board she and her group reviewed thousands of pages of Illinois Environmental Protection Agency records and said an IEPA "No Further Remediation" (NFR) letter relied on testing that did not meet what she described as normal sampling protocols. "They did less than a third of the environmental review samples that are normal standard protocol for assessing a brownfield," Holcomb said, and said she and ETHOS cataloged the site records in roughly 7,000 pages of archived IEPA documents.
Holcomb said some earlier developers had signed nondisclosure agreements when they abandoned purchase agreements after discovering contamination they could not afford to remediate. "We are very concerned about our health, particularly during construction, because when you dig in that ground... all that dust from the construction goes in the air and in the water," she said, adding that she lives three blocks from the site.
Teresa (Theresa) McNamara, president of the Southwest Environment Alliance, described personal family history with steel-mill pollution and pressed the board for ongoing sampling and clearer public updates about remediation status. "Transparency and community engagement seems to be missing," McNamara said. She noted that the federal definition of brownfields covers sites where redevelopment is complicated by real or perceived contamination and said parts of the South Works site previously received an NFR letter while other parts remain under remediation review.
Speakers called on Cook County to use its convening power and leverage any public subsidies going to the project to require full disclosure of environmental sampling, disclosure of remediation plans and enforceable construction safeguards to limit dust and other exposures to nearby residents. No county action or ordinance on the site was proposed during the meeting; the comments were part of the public-comment period.
