Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times, Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is seeking more information about the cumulative air pollution around a proposed scrap-metal shredding operation on the Southeast Side, an inquiry that delays the city’s permitting for the controversial business.
The city has been reviewing an operating permit application from Reserve Management Group, which acquired Lincoln Park-based General Iron in 2019. The company has been building a new facility at East 116th Street along the Calumet River to relocate General Iron, as the rebranded Southside Recycling, next to RMG’s existing businesses.
In a letter Monday, a city environmental official told RMG that it requires more information “to properly assess the relationship between and the potential cumulative impact of all Reserve Management Group operations” in the area. Air pollution throughout the Southeast Side is among the worst in the city.
Sun-Times file
Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s Administration denied to federal investigators that it helped General Iron’s owner relocate its car-shredding operation to the Southeast Side from Lincoln Park, despite a previous agreement to assist in the company’s “expeditious transition” to the new location.
“The proposed expansion is not a relocation of General Iron’s operation at North Clifton but an entirely distinct effort undertaken by a different entity,” city lawyers wrote to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development this week.
The letter, dated Tuesday, defends the city’s actions as HUD officials continue their investigation into whether the Lightfoot Administration violated Southeast Side residents’ civil rights. Advocacy groups have accused the city of helping move a polluting nuisance to a Latino-majority neighborhood to make way for a $6 billion residential and retail development in the mostly white and affluent Lincoln Park. The new facility bei