Pilsen residents in the neighborhood surrounding the H. Kramer ingot factory on 21st street voted overwhelmingly in favor of a referendum to investigate contamination and pollution from the factory. The H. Kramer factory is notorious amongst Pilsen residents for repeated incidents of blanketing the neighborhood in noxious fumes during the night and day. On several occasions residents have documented smoke literally coming out of cracks between bricks; these occurrences underscore the unsavory and unsafe nature of these fumes.

According to scorecard.org H. Kramer dumps large quantities of lead and other carcinogens into the air. Many people suffer ill health effects from the pollution. The asthma rate in Pilsen is amongst the highest in the nation no doubt from the double whammy of pollution from H. Kramer and the nearby Fisk plant.

The authorities take a hands off approach to this environmental racism as epitomized by the befuddlement Pilsen Alderman Danny Solis expressed when he learned that the referendum was placed on the ballot. "What referendum?" he asked. (Maybe next time he shouldn't screen calls from the Pilsen Green Party.) Over the years residents have made numerous calls to the Illinois and Chicago EPA about the pollution from H. Kramer but the pollution continues.

A coalition of Pilsen residents and organizations sponsored a press conference on 8 November at the Alivio Medical Center in Pilsen to announce to results of the referendum and to launch an effort to organize the neighborhood to clean up the air. The aim is to pursue a variety of grassroots, legal, and political strategies. Opinions vary on whether the factory should be shuttered or whether a partnership with the workers and owner of the plant is possible. The bigger picture is of a deeply flawed system for protecting the air we breathe in Pilsen.