BLACK DUST IN THE WIND

摘要

There's a new environmental menace in the neighborhood. Black dust is blowing into homes, parks, and streets on Chicago's southeast side. It's called petroleum coke, or petcoke, and it's a by-product of refining oil from Canada's tar sands. Petcoke is being stored in massive piles-some of them five or six stories high-along the banks of the Calumet River. The southeast side of Chicago has suffered decades of disinvestment, environmental degradation, and socioeconomic disparity-some would say outright environmental racism. It is also one of the key areas in the Millennium Reserve, a city, state, and federal initiative announced in 2011 that would address these issues by, in part, restoring 15,000 acres of open space and building one of the largest regional park networks in the country.