Jan. 14--A panel of Chicago aldermen on Tuesday gave preliminary approval to the city's latest attempt to regulate the storage of giant piles of petroleum coke that have drawn the ire of Southeast Side residents who say their neighborhoods have suffered from dust blowing from the mounds.
The proposal would allow officials to set limits by the end of March on the amount of so-called petcoke -- a byproduct of the oil refining process -- that can be stored in city limits.
Approval of the proposed ordinance by the City Council zoning committee comes weeks after KCBX Terminals, a firm controlled by industrialists Charles and David Koch, announced it would build a $120 million structure along the Calumet River to enclose mounds of petcoke stored there to try to come into compliance with an earlier rule adopted by aldermen. The plan will be considered by the full City Council next week.
Lydia Jordan, a member of the Southeast Side Coalition to Ban Petcoke, told aldermen Tuesday that her group supports the new rule but wondered why the city doesn't ban petcoke outright given the environmental and health problems it causes. "Once the city acknowledges these harms, how can the city set any limit other than zero as a limitation?" she asked.
The petcoke issue has become a focus of the Feb. 24 city election. Ald. John Pope, 10th, faces six challengers, among them Olga Bautista, a member of the anti-petcoke group.
Pope joins Mayor Rahm Emanuel and powerful Southwest Side Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, in supporting the latest petcoke rules.
jebyrne@tribpub.com
Twitter @_johnbyrne
