"EPA Administrator Michael Regan late last week intervened in what is being described as a civil rights case in the southeast side of Chicago, in an overburdened majority-Latino community where another car shredder is proposed.
In a letter Friday to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Regan urged the city to delay a permit for a car and metal shredder upon robust environmental study on cumulative impacts. The mayor agreed.
The move is being called one of Regan's first major tangible actions to protect a strained community from a new source of pollutants.
"Substantial data indicate the current conditions facing Chicago's southeast side epitomize the problem of environmental injustice, resulting from more than a half century of prior actions," Regan wrote.
The area ranks high on various environmental justice metrics, including air toxics cancer risk, respiratory hazard, traffic proximity, lead paint, Superfund site proximity, hazardous waste proximity and wastewater discharges, he wrote."
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