Last week, Governor Rauner finally joined the group of elected officials calling for the shutdown of the Sterigenics facility in Willowbrook. Officials had pressured Rauner to take action to protect the community after weeks of public outcry following the recent release of a report about cancer-causing emissions coming from the…
Willowbrook has been in the news recently because of a federal government report which revealed that Sterigenics has been contaminating the community with a carcinogen known as ethylene oxide for decades, resulting in a significantly elevated cancer risk for nearby residents. This situation reminds me of some similar cases I…
Hundreds of Willowbrook residents filled a standing-room-only meeting last night. They came to hear their government explain whether their health is in danger due to the ethylene oxide pollution that a local company, Sterigenics, has been belching into their neighborhood for the last 30 years. Ethylene oxide is a nasty…
The Chicago Tribune recently reported on a new federal study by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) – released just last week – that highlights a danger to Willowbrook residents who live near Sterigenics International, at 830 Midway Drive and 7775 S. Quincy St., in Willowbrook, IL.…
According to a recent Washington Post article, the EPA has lost a tenth of its criminal investigators since Trump has been in office. The reason this is good news to polluters is that the special agents in the EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division are responsible for investigating the most serious criminal…
We keep hearing about big spender, Scott Pruitt, taking first-class flights around the globe on the taxpayer’s dime. In fact, Politico reported in February that Pruitt spent over $90,000 last June on first-class flights instead of coach, as required by federal regulation because angry individuals were confronting him in airports…
Apparently unconcerned that Illinois is one of the top 10 states for industrial air and water pollution in the country, Governor Rauner’s administration is failing to police and penalize industrial polluters. Put more bluntly, Rauner and his EPA are giving polluters a pass. The Illinois EPA, unlike the US EPA,…
Just when you thought it couldn’t get worse, the latest in a parade of dreadful environmental nominees is back. In December, the Senate sent the nomination of Kathleen-Hartnett White–for Chair of the Council on Environmental Quality–back to the White House for reconsideration, believing that Trump would submit someone else. Instead,…
You know when Republican senators start opposing their own president’s nominees, things must be really bad. Such is the case with Michael Dourson, Trump’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) chemical safety office. Two Republican senators from North Carolina, Thom Tillis, and Richard Burr, recently announced they would…
If you have recently been told, probably by the EPA or a state agency, that there is a possibility of vapor contamination in your neighborhood, what does that mean and what should you do now? First of all, what is vapor intrusion? Vapor intrusion can happen when the groundwater in…