After weeks of pressure, Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration dropped a voluminous environmental assessment of a proposed tent camp for migrants late Friday that said contaminants are being removed from the former Southwest Side industrial site.
The nearly 800-page report by outside contractor Terracon Consultants was released to the Tribune on Friday evening.
It said high levels of mercury and other chemicals were found and are being removed from the Brighton Park lot at 3710 S. California Ave., where workers had already begun building the giant tents for incoming migrants this week.
But the hefty document was only released Friday night to those filing an open records request, despite being at the heart of roiling controversy over the site and in spite of a repeated vow from Johnson to keep the public informed.
Environmental advocates have argued for weeks the property’s long history of industrial uses meant its soil was likely contaminated and unsafe for people to reside on. Still, Johnson’s administration said late Friday it was confident in moving ahead with placing a migrant camp there.
“Terracon conducted a field investigation under a sampling plan that was developed for this specific site,” a Johnson spokesperson wrote in a statement, before noting soil with mercury levels and other contaminants, which were addressed through removal as well as an “engineered barrier” along the site. “With the limited soil removal and placement and maintenance of the barrier, the site is safe for temporary residential use.”
The report notes that despite the presence of toxic substances at the site, the levels detected are within state guidelines and as a result pose minimal risks to temporary occupants of the tent encampment.
Dumping announcements Friday evening is common tactic by mayors to blunt the impact of news heading into the weekend, but the move to release such a lengthy and technical report so late is unusual and could mark the appearance of an administration hoping to escape scrutiny on a future encampment for migrants.
Officials in Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration also expressed frustration at their own wait for the report’s release, even as the state is covering the cost of setting up and operating the tent encampment.
“The state has repeatedly requested this report from the city and despite assurances it would be sent, that has yet to occur,” the governor’s spokeswoman Jordan Abudayyeh said Friday evening.
Later in the evening, she updated: “The state just received the environmental report. The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency will need to review it. We will not have additional comment until the review of the nearly 800 page document is complete.”
The base camp in question, expected to hold about 2,000 asylum-seekers, could open its doors this month and will be the city’s first government-run camp for new arrivals as they wait for beds inside brick-and-mortar shelters. Earlier this week, Johnson did not directly address anxieties from environmental advocates at a news conference, even as tent construction began at the vacant lot and the environmental report was not forthcoming.
The mayor did say, however, that “we have looked for any contaminants, and all of the remediation that’s necessary to eliminate the contaminants, that’s very much a part of our overall agenda.”
And amid sharp grumblings from local stakeholders about what they said was a dearth of information as construction crews descended on the Brighton Park site, Johnson also promised complete transparency about the results: “Once that full report is available by the end of the week, everyone will have access to it. There is no information that is available that you do not have.”
Contrary to his pledge, however — and despite the mayor on Tuesday saying, “The community partners know exactly what’s happening; alders know exactly what’s happening” — his administration did not release the environmental assessment to the public.
The Tribune instead obtained it through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Johnson first pitched the tent encampment idea in September as a means to get migrants off the floors of police station and airport lobbies, but the idea has seen numerous hurdles including alarm from community members over potential contaminants in the soil and other viability issues. Now, an environmental report that has been weeks in the making reveals 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.”
The 38th and California site will be funded by the state as part of a $160 million infusion earmarked to help deal with the growing population of asylum-seekers to Chicago, in a sign of Pritzker’s escalating involvement in the ongoing migrant humanitarian crisis. Questions remain on how the city and state will split up responsibility for the encampment, however.
Workers with state contractor GardaWorld Federal Services, a private security firm, started building out the structure this week, while the city has taken on inquiries surrounding the environment report. The governor’s office has said the migrant camp will not open its doors until mid-December and until the viability assessment was complete, but officials did not have a more concrete timeline as of Friday.
Local Ald. Julia Ramirez, 12th, has staunchly opposed the Brighton Park project amid what she said has been poor communication from the mayor’s office. Reached Friday evening, she reiterated her displeasure.
“Once again, I urge the City to provide comprehensive information on the risks associated with the site, as well as the proposed remediation process,” Ramirez wrote in a statement. “Transparent communication is essential for fostering trust within our community and addressing valid concerns.”
Ramirez has called on the Johnson administration to provide timelier updates for her and neighbors, and she previously questioned why workers were advancing on building an encampment before the public could view the environmental assessment.
At the same time, Johnson is in a race to house hundreds of migrants sleeping out in the cold before another punishing round of snowfall and subfreezing temperatures arrives. That population has sharply plummeted, however, from about 3,800 new arrivals camped out at Chicago police stations and O’Hare International Airport a few weeks ago, to about 900 at the CPD districts and 160 at the airport as of Friday.
In total, more than 23,400 migrants have arrived in Chicago, mostly from south of the U.S. border, since August 2022. The city is sheltering about 13,200 across 26 of its shelters.
