U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 Community Involvement Plan Peoples Gas Company North Shore Avenue Station Manufactured Gas Plant Site Chicago, Cook County, Illinois August 2009 Introduction U.S. Environmental Protection Agency prepared this community involvement plan (CIP) for the Peoples Gas Company North Shore Station manufactured gas plant (MGP) site in the West Rogers Park area in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. This CIP provides background information on the site, describes activities EPA will perform to keep the public and local officials informed about progress at the site, and encourages community involvement during cleanup of the site. This CIP also discusses the concerns of nearby residents and local officials regarding the site and ways for EPA to address those concerns. The information in this CIP is based primarily on discussions with residents, business owners and elected officials that occurred July 8, 2009. Site background EPA has entered into an agreement with Peoples Gas Company to oversee the company’s investigation of 11 former MGP sites in Chicago. North Shore Avenue Station is one of the MGP sites. Peoples Gas will investigate the extent and nature of contamination at the North Shore Avenue Station site, and then evaluate potential cleanup options. This process is expected to continue through 2009. EPA, in consultation with Illinois EPA, the City of Chicago and area residents, will determine final cleanup remedies. All of the properties covered by the agreement are relatively close to the Chicago River, which was a transportation route when the MGPs operated. These facilities produced gas from coal from the mid-19th through the mid-20th centuries. After World War II, coal gas was phased out and replaced with natural gas for cooking and heating. Waste from these operations often included tar, oil, cinders and coke (coal residue). The waste material also usually contained compounds commonly found in motor oils (polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs—contaminants that evaporate into the air easily) and heavy metals such as arsenic and lead. Of the 11 sites being investigated, this CIP focuses on the North Shore Avenue Station site. See the site location map on Page 3. Site description Location and site features The North Shore Avenue Station site is in Rogers Park Township and is bounded on the west by North Kedzie Avenue, on the east by North Whipple Street, on the south by residential properties on Albion Avenue, and on the north by recently constructed single family homes on North Shore Avenue. The North Shore Channel of the Chicago River is approximately 350 feet west of the western property line. 2 The North Shore Station site is divided into three parcels, totaling 10.2 acres. Peoples Gas owns the main parcel of the site, which is about 5.4 acres and is currently used as a natural gas regulator station, a vehicle maintenance shop and fueling facility. The Chicago Board of Education owns the 3-acre east parcel and is building an elementary school on the site (6700 N. Whipple Ave.), which previously consisted of a vacant lot covered by vegetation and an unused paved entrance to the property. Regent Park City Homes owns the remaining 1.8- acre parcel, which is currently being developed as residential property. Both the Board of Education and the Regent Park City Homes parcels were cleaned up to allow for residential uses of the property. History and cleanup progress Peoples Gas began operating a storage facility for manufactured gas on the site in 1926. The gas holder was taken out of service in 1956 for inspection and repairs. The gas holder sealant was changed from tar to oil at that time, and nearly 200,000 gallons of tar were removed from the site. The gas holder and most of the tar tanks associated with it were removed in 1971. The main gas storage facility buildings are currently used for the sub-shop operations. The shallow ground water in the underlying glacial aquifer flows westward toward the North Shore Channel of the Chicago River. Chemicals detected in ground water samples collected at the site include barium, cyanide, and PAHs. Deeper ground water conditions at the site have not been investigated. The site surface soil is fill material consisting primarily of silt and sand with smaller amounts of clay, gravel and brick. Soil samples collected during site investigations found tar 3 staining below the ground water level, as well as PAHs, metals, cyanide and VOCs. Soil at the site was cleaned up in 1997 and 2001. Soil contaminated with chlorinated solvents in the northern portion of the site was removed in 1997. Some of the contaminated soil had levels of contamination that exceed the Illinois residential standards, so land use in this portion of the site is restricted. Further site investigations led to the excavation of approximately 26,000 tons of soil contaminated with lead and PAHs in 2001 and 2002. The tar-stained soil below the ground water level was not removed during this cleanup effort, which was completed under the Illinois Site Remediation Program. Community background Chicago is the county seat of Cook County. West Rogers Park falls within the Ward 50 boundaries and is bordered by Howard Street to the north, Ridge Boulevard, Western Avenue and Ravenswood Avenue to the east, Bryn Mawr Avenue and Peterson Avenue to the south, and Kedzie Avenue and the North Shore Channel to the west. Also known as West Ridge, West Rogers Park is located on the north side of the city of Chicago. The neighborhood, which used to be part of Rogers Park, separated in 1890 over a conflict known as the Cabbage War. The community is home to Jewish, Irish-American, German-American, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Assyrian, Russian and Korean immigrant communities, as well as the Midwest’s largest Hasidic community. There is some contention in the neighborhood concerning the building of a public elementary school on the site to relieve overcrowding at Clinton and Boone Elementary Schools in West Ridge. Clinton currently exports its third and fourth grades to makeshift classrooms in a nearby church. Many students living in the neighborhood of the site attend private schools. In fact, as of the 2000 census, 30.5 percent of students in the West Ridge area attended private schools. This is 5.6 percent higher than the percentage of students attending private schools in the city of Chicago. West Rogers Park is approximately 3.5 square miles. As of the 2000 census, the community had a population of 73,199 (up 11.97 percent from 1990) and represented 2.5 percent of the city of Chicago’s population. According to the 2000 census, the population of West Rogers Park was 49.7 percent white, 6.78 percent African-American, 15.5 percent Hispanic or Latino of any race, and 22.3 percent Asian. Rogers Park is one of the most diverse communities in the entire country. The median income for a household in West Rogers Park is $41,144; 14.3 percent of the population and 12.5 percent of families are below the poverty line. Out of the total population, 12.9 percent of those under the age of 18 and 12.7 percent of those 65 and older are living below the poverty line.1 From 1990 to 2000, households in linguistic isolation (a household where the primary language for all members 14 years old and over is not English, and English is spoken less 2 than “very well”) increased 4.7 percent, totaling 17.1 percent. 1 http://www.nd.edu/~chifacts/chicago.html 2 2004 Consortium on Chicago School Research. http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/web_reports/Schoolageenvironment/communities/language/WestRidge.html 4 Community issues and concerns To learn about resident and community concerns regarding the site, EPA held several community interviews on July 8, 2009. EPA talked with the alderman for Ward 50, business owners and residents living in the vicinity of the Peoples Gas site and asked them about various issues related to the contamination and cleanup at the site, the community involvement process, the communication process to date, and how the community involvement process could be improved. Summary of community interviews Most of those interviewed live or work in the area. Below are the specific questions EPA asked and a summary of the answers that were provided at the July 8, 2009 community interviews. Note to the reader: This summary is intended to faithfully record and reflect the issues and concerns expressed to EPA by residents, officials and others on the days of the Community Interviews. By necessity, this is a collection of opinions, thoughts and feelings. Therefore, please be cautioned that the statements contained in this section may, or may not, be factual and the opinions and concerns expressed may, or may not, be valid. Are you aware of contamination at the former North Shore Avenue Station manufactured gas plant site along the river near Kedzie Avenue, Whipple Street, Albion Avenue and North Shore Avenue? Many people interviewed were aware of the contamination and cleanup of the CP Clare Corp. site on West Pratt Avenue (near the location of the North Shore Avenue Station site), but were confused as to whether the North Shore Avenue Station site was related to that contamination or if it is a new site. Others interviewed mentioned that they have only heard information about the public elementary school (Boone-Clinton Elementary School) being built on contaminated land or on an old MPG site. A Chicago Board of Education official who was interviewed stated that Chicago Public Schools bought the land from Peoples Gas and received a No Further Remediation (NFR) (cleanup) letter stating the property has been cleaned to residential standards.