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Read a copy of our letter to the SUN-TIMES

Can we trust Waste Management’s
“Gateway Park” landfill deal?

To the Southeast Side Community:

The undersigned leaders of the Southeast Side urge our Aldermen to renew Chicago's landfill moratorium permanently. This will stop the expansion of any landfills in our community.

Our local Chambers of Commerce -- East Side, Hegewisch and South Chicago -- presented a community informational meeting on alternative garbage disposal technologies on November 9th, 2004 at St. Kevin Church.

Our garbage can be handled in a more economically and environmentally friendly way. New waste to energy technologies have been developed that could safely manage our local garbage, while producing energy that can reduce the costs of disposal.

A permanent moratorium will ensure our community does not ever again become a garbage dump for Northeast Illinois, Northwest Indiana, or beyond. Our community already has the highest concentration of landfills in the Midwest. And, in the past, our state has taken in more of out-of-state garbage than any other state in the U.S.

The Southeast Side has already shouldered too much of the region's burden for waste disposal.

Other reasons why it is important for residents, businesses, and industry to stand firm in support of alternative waste technologies and a permanent landfill moratorium are:

• The Ford Calumet Environmental Center will be built directly across from the proposed landfill location and attract up to 100,000 visitors each year to the Southeast Side. These visitors will spend their money in local businesses. Odors from the landfill, as observed by the designers of the Center and many residents in the area, would discourage these visitors from ever coming back.
• The problems associated with landfills devalue real estate, according to the U.S. EPA.
• Scientists and regulators still do not fully understand all the health problems that pollution from landfills can cause, nor do they know the long term environmental costs of closed landfills— costs that we taxpayers will pay.
• If Waste Management were allowed to expand, at least one other landfill in the Southeast Side would have grounds for reopening.

The Southeast Side has entered a new era where economic growth can be stimulated by wise land use and sustainable waste management policies. We can all benefit from a permanent landfill moratorium and by investigating alternative waste management technologies.

Download a copy of this statement in a PDF file - Community_Support.PDF