Southside Recycling letter urges officials to grant the company final permit needed to start operations

Southside Recycling letter urges officials to grant the company final permit needed to start operations
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The executives of Chicago-based Southside Recycling and its parent, Reserve Management Group (RMG), Stow, Ohio, sent a letter Dec. 15 inviting Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan that invites them to tour the company’s new metal recycling facility and asks them to grant the final permit needed to begin operating the idle $80 million private investment. More than 1,300 stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, neighbors on the Southeast Side and other businesses, including those in the recycling, metals and related industries,  signed the letter as well.

“We hope that each of you will finally take the time to come see what we have built so that we might be granted a fair chance to set the record straight,” writes RMG CEO Steve Joseph in the two-and-a-half-page letter.

In the letter, Joseph writes that the city and federal EPA have catered to the complaints of a small but vocal group of activists who have protested the facility’s pending start of operations. He adds that the opposition has continued despite the multiple permits that have been issued by the city of Chicago and the Illinois EPA after lengthy review processes that included robust community input.

Further, the letter notes that the unwarranted delay in issuing the final permit is “in clear contravention of a signed agreement between our business and the city of Chicago.” In the September 2019 agreement between the company and the Lightfoot administration, the company said it would close its metal shredding facility on the city’s North Side by the end of 2020, while the city said it would “reasonably cooperate . . . in achieving the efficient, expeditious transition” to a new facility.

Despite the agreement and previously issued permits, in May of this year, the city suspended its review of RMG’s permit application, the first under Chicago’s new Large Recycling Facility rules that were adopted in June 2020 with Southside Recycling in mind. That suspension was allegedly at the behest of U.S. EPA Administrator Regan. Joseph writes that the delay in issuing the permit has “left our business, hundreds of other businesses in Chicago and the surrounding area and the lives of thousands of employees and their families in limbo.”

In the letter, Joseph acknowledges the legitimate environmental concerns that Southeast Side residents have faced over the years. However, he also writes that RMG, which has operated other recycling businesses on the same campus for more than two decades, has never been the source of these past issues. In addition, the previously issued city and state permits included extensive air modeling and testing of the facility’s advanced emissions control equipment that prove RMG’s assertions that the business will meet or exceed all applicable environmental standards. The letter states that Southside Recycling “will establish a new standard for responsible metal recycling in the United States.”

According to the letter, the city is conducting an “ambiguous and unwarranted” Health Impact Assessment (HIA), which has consisted of two public sessions and a third planned for next month, after which the city has indicated it intends to issue a decision on the permit. The HIA “lacks any objective standards,” Joseph writes, and “not only goes outside the boundaries of relevant law and regulations but also ignores and diminishes the significant work and robust analysis already completed.”

Joseph says the city’s permit delay undermines legitimate environmental justice concerns because Chicago’s only other shredding facility, Sims Metal Management in Pilsen, continues to operate as Southside Recycling sits idle. This facility, which also is in an environmental justice area, employs no pollution controls on its shredder and is located closer to homes and schools than RMG’s new operation, the letter states. The delay also is financially squeezing hundreds of small scrap metal businesses and thousands of individual recyclers who are being paid lower prices for their materials because of the lack of market competition over the last year, Joseph writes.

Southside Recycling is located on 175 acres, which Joseph says are well-buffered, a half-mile from the closest homes and schools. The site features an enclosed metal shredder and what the company says is the best available air quality controls. Emissions will be monitored continuously, giving the state and federal EPAs and the city the ability to enforce applicable health standards. Joseph also notes that recycling obsolete metal contributes to environmental sustainability by conserving natural resources and lessening emissions by reducing the need for energy-intensive mining of virgin minerals from the earth.

A tour of the operation will demonstrate with facts and science that we are a model business that is both critical in promoting sustainable economic growth while simultaneously serving as an example of how industry can innovate to protect human and environmental health in order to safely and responsibly coexist with surrounding communities,” the letter concludes.

In mid-May, Southside Recycling and RMG filed a federal lawsuit seeking a court order to direct the city of Chicago to issue a final permit to the company. The lawsuit alleged that the city had wrongfully failed to issue the last permit needed for the facility to begin operating, despite acknowledging for months that Southside Recycling had satisfied its requirements. The company also sought more than $100 million in damages resulting from the permit delay.

However, U.S. District Judge Robert M. Dow Jr. rejected the companies’ claim that their constitutional rights were violated, writing that the arguments in the dispute are better suited for state court and that the case is terminated.

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Source: Recycling Today
Southside Recycling letter urges officials to grant the company final permit needed to start operations
<![CDATA[The executives of Chicago-based Southside Recycling and its parent, Reserve Management Group (RMG), Stow, Ohio, sent a letter Dec. 15 inviting Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Michael Regan that invites them to tour the company’s new metal recycling facility and asks them to grant the final permit needed to begin operating the idle $80 million private investment. More than 1,300 stakeholders, including employees, suppliers, neighbors on the Southeast Side and other businesses, including those in the recycling, metals and related industries,  signed the letter as well.“We hope that each of you will finally take the time to come see what we have built so that we might be granted a fair chance to set the record straight,” writes RMG CEO Steve Joseph in the two-and-a-half-page letter.In the letter, Joseph writes that the city and federal EPA have catered to the complaints of a small but vocal group of activists who have protested the facility’s pending start of operations. He adds that the opposition has continued despite the multiple permits that have been issued by the city of Chicago and the Illinois EPA after lengthy review processes that included…