Electronic Filing: Received, Clerk's Office 08/27/2020 BEFORE THE ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD ) In the Matter of: ) ) STANDARD FOR THE DISPOSAL OF ) COAL COMBUSTION RESIDUALS ) PCB 2020-019 IN SURFACE IMPOUNDMENTS: ) (Rulemaking - Water) PROPOSED NEW 35 ILL. ADMIN. ) CODE 845 ) ) ) ) NOTICE OF ELECTRONIC FILING To: Attached Service List PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on August 27, 2020, I electronically filed with the Clerk of the Illinois Pollution Control Board (“Board”) the PRE-FILED TESTIMONY OF DULCE ORTIZ, a copy of which is served on you along with this notice. Dated: August 27, 2020 Respectfully Submitted, /s/Jeffrey T. Hammons Jeffrey T. Hammons, (IL Bar No. #6324007) Environmental Law & Policy Center 1440 G Street NW Washington DC, 20005 T: (785) 217-5722 [email protected] Electronic Filing: Received, Clerk's Office 08/27/2020 /s/Kiana Courtney Kiana Courtney (ARDC No. #6334333) Environmental Law & Policy Center 35 E. Wacker Drive, Suite 1600 Chicago, Illinois 60601 [email protected] Attorneys for Environmental Law & Policy Center /s/Jennifer Cassel Jennifer Cassel (IL Bar No. 6296047) Earthjustice 311 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 1400 Chicago, IL 60606 (312) 500-2198 (phone) [email protected] /s/Thomas Cmar Thomas Cmar (IL Bar No. 6298307) Earthjustice 3ll S. Wacker Dr., Suite 1400 Chicago, IL 60606 T: (312) 500-2191 [email protected] /s/Mychal Ozaeta Mychal Ozaeta (ARDC No. #6331185) Earthjustice 707 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 4300 Los Angeles, CA 90017 T: 213-766-1069 [email protected] /s/Melissa Legge Melissa Legge (ARDC No. #6334808) Earthjustice 48 Wall Street, 15th Floor New York, NY 10005 T: 212 823-4978 [email protected] Attorneys for Prairie Rivers Network Electronic Filing: Received, Clerk's Office 08/27/2020 /s/Faith E. Bugel Faith E. Bugel 1004 Mohawk Wilmette, IL 60091 (312) 282-9119 [email protected] Attorney for Sierra Club Electronic Filing: Received, Clerk's Office 08/27/2020 BEFORE THE ILLINOIS POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD IN THE MATTER OF: ) ) STANDARDS FOR THE DISPOSAL OF ) R 20-19 COAL COMBUSTION RESIDUALS IN ) (Rulemaking – Land) SURFACE IMPOUNDMENTS: PROPOSED ) NEW 35 ILL. ADM. CODE 845 ) ) PRE-FILED TESTIMONY OF DULCE ORTIZ I’m very honored and blessed to be here and have the opportunity to represent and be the voice of 48,000 Latinos from the City of Waukegan. My name is Dulce Ortiz, and I have been a volunteer with the Clean Power Lake County since its inception in 2013. Clean Power Lake County is a community-driven coalition committed to local action to secure environmental, economic, and racial justice. It is supported by several partners, including environmental, faith, and public health organizations. Members of the Clean Power Lake County Campaign advocate for a long-term retirement plan for the coal-fired power plant in Waukegan, including a just transition for the workforce, the tax base, and the lakefront site. Members also work to promote clean energy projects that can create new local jobs and tax revenue for Waukegan and Lake County. I have been a resident of Waukegan for over 25 years and have dedicated my life to serving my community. I’ve volunteered my time and efforts in various organizations, such as the Waukegan Youth Football Association, the Waukegan Youth Wrestling Club, and Relay for Life Greater Waukegan/Far North Shore. I’ve been actively involved and have served as a Board Member of different social, environmental, business, health, and government organizations. I currently serve on the Black Chamber of Commerce of Lake County Board, the Waukegan Park District Recreational Advisory Board, the Illinois Department of Human Services’ Social Services Advisory Council, the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights Board, and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) Lake County Board of Directors, just to name a few. I’ve invested so much in my community because I love where I live. Waukegan has a beautiful lakefront that sits on the shore of Lake Michigan. Our community has much to offer from the great cultural diversity of our residents, many small businesses and local restaurants, as well as a vibrant arts community. Our harbor is home to hundreds of sailboats and our municipal swimming beach attracts hundreds of families throughout the summer. My son and I live in downtown Waukegan and I honestly can’t imagine living anywhere else. I am incredibly invested in my community and I work extremely hard to promote all of the amazing things that our city has to offer. However, Waukegan faces many challenges. My community has a painful history of industrial pollution and contamination. Industrial corporations made their profits for many years on our lakefront and then abruptly left our community along with a long legacy of contamination, which we are currently still spending our Electronic Filing: Received, Clerk's Office 08/27/2020 tax dollars trying to clean up. The lack of transition planning as these companies exited the community resulted in massive job and tax base loss which economically depressed our community. The extensive contamination has left sites in years of remediation efforts and now with limited options for reuse. The City of Waukegan is now made up of 54% Hispanics and 18% African Americans, with a total population of 89,000. Families in our community are low to moderate-income, who don’t always have access to quality healthcare nor preventative care. Minority and economically disadvantaged communities are disproportionately burdened by pollution, and the Waukegan community is no different. On top of all of the other sources of pollution my community is exposed to, we also have the largest source of air and water pollution in the county in our backyard: the NRG Energy coal plant. After its previous owner Midwest Generation went into bankruptcy, NRG Energy purchased Midwest Generation as a subsidiary along with its Illinois coal plant fleet which included the Waukegan plant. The plant was built in the 1920s and currently operates boilers that are over 50 years old. The coal power plant hurts the health of all communities in Lake County, but particularly Waukegan. As a mother, I feel very blessed because my children are healthy, love to run around, and are very active. Unfortunately, as many as 1 in 3 children in Waukegan are not as blessed and are living with asthma or symptoms of asthma according to a pediatric asthma assessment conducted by the Mobile C.A.R.E. Foundation (Attachment 1). My mother and I also suffer from asthma, and although I am grateful for my job, which provides health benefits, I constantly worry about my mother because she does not have health insurance or any state or federal assistance for prescription medications. Not only is our public health being impacted by the pollution from the coal plant, but so are our budgets. The rising medical costs are an everyday struggle for our low to middle income families. In 2012, the NAACP released its Coal Blooded report, which looked at how low-income and minority communities are disproportionately affected by health-threatening pollution from coal- fired plants (Attachment 2). Based on a national analysis, the report ranked the Waukegan power plant as the twelfth worst violator of environmental justice in the country. Many of the plants listed in the top 10 in the report have since closed, putting Waukegan even higher now on the list. I live just over 1 mile from the plant. Needless to say, I don’t let my children go swimming or fishing on the Lake due to my fear of them getting sick just by doing things that normal kids do because of the exposure to so many sources of pollution. The Waukegan plant has two active coal ash ponds that sit just over 300 yards from the shore of Lake Michigan. While the ponds have plastic liners, monitoring reports from groundwater monitoring wells at the plant have revealed groundwater contamination from common pollutants found in coal ash, such as arsenic, boron, manganese, sulfates, pH, chloride, iron, selenium, and total dissolved solids. Additionally, we have learned that coal ash had been stored elsewhere on the site in the past and was never cleaned up. This coal ash is also contributing to groundwater contamination. This follows the terrible pattern of companies who go into bankruptcy and abruptly leave our community and lakefront behind with a devastating legacy of pollution that our community and taxpayers have to clean up. How does this happen? How are companies allowed to do this in my community time and time again? Not only is it a tremendous amount of toxic pollution that our predominantly low-income, Latino residents are exposed to, but it is also devastating for our Electronic Filing: Received, Clerk's Office 08/27/2020 community economically. Waukegan has dreamed for years, and still dreams, of revitalizing our lakefront. We have aspirational lakefront plans that have seen little success in coming to fruition in part because of the amount of contamination that remains at many of these sites and the limited re-use options they offer due to the levels of contamination. When we allow companies to pollute our communities and do not force them to clean up, we deter future investment in these sites and in our communities at large. This is devastating for economically disadvantaged communities like Waukegan who desperately need new investments and economic renewal. In addition to groundwater contamination associated with the NRG coal ash ponds and the legacy coal ash landfill, our community has great concerns about the water discharge from the plant going into Lake Michigan, some of which comes in direct contact with the coal ash water. The Waukegan coal plant was allowed to operate for years with an expired water permit, missing 3 five-year renewal deadlines.