Reshaping Community in the Fight for Clean Air on the Southeast Side
CEJN continues its reflection on the anniversary of the victory to deny the General Iron permit. Here we interview Breanna Bertacchi, member of the Stop General Iron campaign and former hunger striker.
Breanna Bertacchi celebrates with other Stop General Iron activists outside City Hall. Photo by Eduardo Cornejo
February is an emotional month for Southeast Side community members.
Earlier this month marked the 2 year anniversary of the Stop General Iron hunger strike, which propelled the fight to block the relocation of a notorious metal shredding facility from a hyper local issue into a national story.
On February 18, 2022 Southeast Side residents and their allies received the news that some had worried would never come—they stopped General Iron.
“CDPH hereby denies the permit,” read a letter sent by the Chicago Department of Public Health.
The community had won, but with as much influence as industry holds over so many of the policy decisions that affect the lives of marginalized communities, there was cause for some caution. Like with any victory, there was always a concern that the fight didn’t end there. Soon after the decision to deny the permit was announced, General Iron’s parent company, Reserve Management Group sued the city of Chicago to attempt to overturn the decision and force the city to grant their permit application.
The city of Chicago recently wrapped up deliberations with RMG in their latest lawsuit, and a final determination on the permit is now pending a decision by a city administrative judge sometime in the spring.
In reflecting on the anniversary of the CDPH ruling to deny the operating permit for General Iron, we recently spoke to Breanna Bertacchi, member of the Stop General Iron campaign and former hunger striker.
Carlos: So how did you first learn about the relocation of General Iron?
Breanna: I first learned about the General Iron issue from a community event that United Neighbors of the 10th Ward had put together. It was neighbors in the park, and the organizers had asked for folks from the Southeast Environmental Task Force and a couple other community groups to come together and speak about their opinions on the proposed relocation. So it was an educational forum. I hadn't heard of any or much news coverage of the event prior to that. And so it was just a chance to hear from my neighbors what they had thought. And from there, I started seeing more events and protests take place and learned more just from those spaces and those community gatherings.
CE: After you learned about it and after attending these events, was there anything in particular that led you to get involved in the fight to stop it from coming to the Southeast Side?
BB: I think the striking part was learning how the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency had pushed forward the initial permitting and that CDPH hadn’t been transparent in their work to approve the second step of the permit. For me, that was kind of the kicker. That for me was when it felt most important to step in and demand that. I guess that was the striking point for me that motivated me to get involved. From a policy perspective, how can we prevent this from happening again so that efforts to protect communities moving forward can be more proactive. And this is what we want as opposed to reactive. And we're just learning about this and now we're on high alert. I think that learning the lack of transparency is what motivated me the most.
CE: What does it mean to you to think about the fact that the hunger strike you took part of was now two years ago?
BB: I'll echo some of what Yesenia said (in her letter) that it was like double edged. It was great to see all the community support and it's also devastating two years later to know it's still ambiguous. To me, the anniversary was difficult. I think the day that we announced it was maybe February 3rd or 4th, and that that day was kind of hard. In the wake of it, it has been encouraging to reflect back and see how much ongoing continued support and amplification there's been on this issue on the Southeast Side and across the city. There's still community groups that I sit in on that speak to that effort and it's empowering and I hope the rest of the community feels it's been empowering to know that that still is center stage in a lot of spaces that are getting together and talking about EJ issues. And so in that way it's meaningful, and I feel that the contribution I made had an impact on the visibility of this issue.
The flip-side of that is that knowing where these lawsuits are, knowing there's ambiguity, watching how hard RMG is fighting, thinking that they're in the right for this permit, in this operation, that's that. Because the challenging part was seeing that two years later the alderwoman still stands by ambiguity. The city never really took a strong stance. It did take escalation from the U.S. EPA for intervention, for the right thing to be done and for it to be where it is now. It is both. The anniversary brought up great feelings of we changed something, we made an impact and also feelings of hopelessness of two years later something could happen with these court appeals. And they could be up and running in six months. And that's scary.
CE: Maybe reflecting on another positive is that this Saturday, February 18th, marks the one year anniversary of the decision by the the Department of Public Health to deny the permit. Describe what the feeling was like when you received the news that the permit had been denied
BB: As a ‘90s kid, I will say I feel like it was one of those events where it's called Snapshot Memory in neurology.You remember where you are, what you were doing, how you're feeling the time of day, it’s an event of such great importance that you have a snapshot memory of it. A year later, l remember exactly where I was. I remember exactly what I was doing. I remember breaking down and crying in public and like hopping on my phone, trying to reach Yesenia and the group chat. I remember all the events leading up to that too were like promising a couple of the news releases, a couple of things like watching the news at Marcie’s and things like that. It still does to this day feel like all that effort and sacrifice was worth it. Yeah, I think looking back hindsight 20/20 now we know the reality that that great celebration happened. And I guess you're right, we are at the one year anniversary of that. Like I said before, we're still at this point where in six months these lawsuits could take a turn and they're still up and running across the street from an elementary school and from a high school. I guess that's the hard part.
CE: As the city deliberates its decision to deny the permit in court, what do you see as the next step in the fight to ensure community members in the Southeast Side can breathe clean air?
BB: I personally felt really encouraged when we were invited to meet with a couple of folks in the U.S. EPA policy making team. They were requesting our input on what community feedback and community process look like in future permitting requests. For me, that felt very in line with what I would see us as change moving forward. Kind of to the point that I was saying earlier, getting ahead of these issues instead of reacting to something that's already in motion and getting ahead and saying, we don't want this, we have a plan, we have an alternative proposal. So I think if there's any indication that the U.S. EPA or the Illinois EPA would be interested in resuming those conversations and hearing the community's thoughts of what barriers did we experience in this permitting process. You know, all the things that we said of in-person versus hybrid meetings, there's a lot of questions, a lot of rescheduling around the holidays that was rude to the community, access for bilingual resources and things like that from the city. So I think if for me, a good indicator of change and something that would show that protections are being put in place at a higher level would be if the U.S. EPA and the Illinois EPA integrated our feedback into policy so that permitting requests moving forward had to incorporate our feedback and the issues that we raised.
I guess maybe some of this framing gets lost in what's going on in the courts and how the judge will choose to move forward. I don't know what it looks like for the community to respond at this level, aside from showing the courts that we're continuing to watch, will continue to put up a fight. Knowing that a judge that's separate from the community, that's like a separate entity, would have weight in such a heavy decision that's going to impact so many lives, and specifically the kids that are just trying to go to school and the folks that are using that road that's kind of difficult for me to wrap my head around that that one person can have that say and it can just flip a switch in a day and then they resume construction and they're up and running. I don't. Aside from that, I don't know what the community can do to change, to react and respond appropriately. I think we did everything we could and we've continued to show up in every way possible that folks have capacity to. So I think the onus isn't on the Southeast Side anymore. The burden is on the judge and hopefully the U.S. EPA moving forward to do the right thing and protect these spaces.
CE: As a former hunger striker, a member of the Southside community that fought against this metal shredder, someone who has dedicated a big part of their life to researching and finding the common good for everyone in your community. Anything else that you want to say?
BB: I guess the thing that I stand by the most is just that I was a newer community member to the Southeast Side and all of the education that I received was by my neighbors and folks in these meetings that I hadn't really met before. UN10 was a big part of like, “here are the resources, here's the places to do the research.” And then as I got folded into the coalition, that knowledge base grew. But I learned a lot more about what it takes to be a community scientist. I'm not in this big institution with a Ph.D. conducting this research, publishing it, and then asking someone else to respond or to change their waste practices in the community. I have a regular 9 to 5 job and then I come home and I hop on Google and I get these updates for myself and I chat with my friends and neighbors and learn. That's something I'd never experienced before in my life or in other communities that I've lived in. That knowledge and research sharing and I appreciated that so much because it steered me in the direction to understand what was going on, what was right. And then I got to decide for myself how the level of involvement that I wanted to take. It just reshaped community a little bit for me.
Breanna Bertacchi— Originally from California, but raised in the cornfields of Ohio, Breanna now resides in the 10th Ward. Since moving here in 2019, they've gradually learned from their neighbors what issues the Ward faces and has enjoyed volunteering & gardening in the local Parks.
