[Randomguy34]

EPA probes pollution from scrap yard near potential Amazon HQ2 site in gentrifying Clybourn Corridor

One of the last industrial facilities in the fast-gentrifying Clybourn Corridor looks more like a set from "Mad Max" than the glittering, tech-friendly utopia portrayed in videos promoting Chicago for Amazon's second headquarters.

Nearly every day, claw-mounted cranes at the General Iron Industries scrap yard feed flattened cars, twisted rebar and used appliances into hulking shredders that reduce the metallic waste into chunks the size of a coffee can. Smoke pours out of the machines as semis and pickup trucks back into piles of metal, scrap is plucked off barges moored along the Chicago River, and tower-mounted sprinklers spray a fine mist across the wreckage.
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As the area has gone upscale, neighbors have increasingly complained about metallic odors and noise from the scrap yard. Last month, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered General Iron's owners to conduct detailed air pollution testing within the next six months, the first step in what could be the third federal crackdown on the scrap yard since the late 1990s.

The EPA demanded the tests after Ald. Brian Hopkins, 2nd, revealed that a University of Illinois at Chicago researcher had found alarming levels of lung-damaging particulate matter downwind from the facility. The researcher was enlisted by a Lincoln Park man who said he was fed up with pollution drifting into his neighborhood.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/l...228-story.html

Can't say I'm surprised by this. If General Iron is forced to leave, that can only be good news for Sterling Bay if they want to increase the number of parcels they own.