More than 100 Southeast Side community members and activists stood in the steady cold drizzle in Jonquil Park, near where they believe Dr. Allison Arwady lives, on Friday evening to call for her immediate denial of a permit for a metal scrapper.

       Resource Management Group (RMG) is pursuing a permit to build a metal-shredding recycling facility on the city’s Southeast Side and activists said they will remain outside the Wrightwood Neighbors home where they believe Arwady, the head of the city’s Department of Public Health, lives until its permit application is rejected.

       To a drumbeat, they began marching to the home around 6 p.m. They called out: “What do we want? Clean air!”

       Gregory Miller, a sophomore at George Washington High School on the Southeast Side, spoke through a bullhorn. He said he was frustrated and angry that he had to come to Arwady’s house right after school just to have his voice heard.

       Miller said this is not the first time he has protested against the facility.

       “I am tired of repeating the same thing about these politics,” Miller said. “No one should ever have to go through this.”

       People hold rain-soaked signs during a protest at Jonquil Park in Chicago's Wrightwood Neighbors neighborhood on Dec. 10, 2021, to bring attention to the proposed construction of a metal-shredding facility on the Southeast Side by Resource Management Group. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

       Four additional protesters sat in the rain, with clear plastic ponchos on. They were in folding chairs lined up in front of the steps leading to the house they said Arwady lives in. They said they plan to stay in those chairs until Arwady denies the permit.

       Arwady’s department began a health impact assessment after the permitting process was delayed in May when Michael Regan, the new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator, raised concerns about locating another polluter in a heavily industrialized neighborhood where people already breathe some of the city’s dirtiest air.

       ”Because of these well-known degraded environmental conditions, the siting of this facility in Chicago’s southeast side has raised significant civil rights concerns,” Regan wrote in the letter.

       The Southeast Side is a predominantly low-income and Latino community that has long been home to various industries the produce waste and pollution. Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s administration is also facing a federal environmental justice investigation after approving the state permits RMG needed to proceed with the facility.

       RMG bought the Lincoln Park metal shredding operation from General Iron before it was closed in December 2020 following protests from mostly affluent, predominantly white Lincoln Park residents.

       The city’s health department has already approved one of at least two permits RMG needs before moving despite Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s multiple promises to crack down on polluters and her declaration that racism is a public health crisis.

       On Dec. 2, Southeast Side activists held a news conference, announcing they would give Arwady one more week to conclude the impact assessment and recommend against granting RMG a permit before they would protest outside her house.

       The protesters said the evidence is clear: The Southeast Side is already burdened with pollution and should not have to carry more. Rather, they said, city officials should focus on cleaning up the pollution that is already there.

       “Dr. Arwady and Mayor Lightfoot, you have enough information to deny the permit,” Amalia NietoGomez, executive director of the Alliance of the SouthEast, said at the news conference last week. “The community has been loud, and we want you to deny the permit. Southeast Side residents have suffered enough.”

       The Department of Public Health held its second community engagement meeting on the proposed facility Thursday evening. The meeting was rescheduled several times and was changed from in person to virtual.

       The department chose an unusual format for a public meeting, breaking the 150 attendees into several small groups of roughly 15 people each to offer comments and questions on the permitting process. Recordings of the small groups have not yet been made available to the public.

       “CDPH has been listening to community voices and concerns around this scrap metal recycling permit for well over a year,” the department said in a statement following the meeting. “We expect to make a decision about the RMG/Southside Recycling permit before the end of January.”

       Southeast Siders camp out, vowing not to leave until Dr. Allison Arwady denies metal scrapper permit

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