[CPEO-BIF] La Villita Park, Chicago, Illinois

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

This Sparkling New Park Was A Toxic Brownfield Just 4 Years Ago
 
By Joseph Erbentraut
Huffington Post
December 20, 2014

It is truly incredible what can be achieved when a neighborhood unites.

Though one would never guess by looking at it today, the site of Chicago's newest city park was a contaminated eyesore not long ago. This turnaround has everything to do with local citizens working together for something better, say community leaders in the Little Village neighborhood, where the park is located.

"It feels good to get to this point and see the impact on the neighborhood," Antonio Lopez -- executive director for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, a group that campaigned to make the park a reality -- told The Huffington Post. "We're just a few days in and to see the community members out there and see the look on their face after we got to this point is really amazing."

The 22-acre La Villita Park, which officially opened Dec. 14, was built on a site formerly used by a company called Celotex (which is now owned by Honeywell) to make, store and sell asphalt roofing products. As far back as 1989, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency was alerted to pollution deriving from coal tar that was present on the property. The area was eventually designated a federal Superfund site after it was determined that cancer-linked polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons had been identified in soil on the site, as well as in surface soil in some nearby residential yards. 

…

For the entire article, see
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/20/la-villita-park-chicago-superfund_n_6351140.html

--

Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope Street
Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650-961-8918 or 650-969-1545
Fax: 650-961-8918
LSiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org




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