Calumet area environmental and community activists will attend the June 7 meeting of the City Council's environmental protection committee to support the proposal, said Marian Byrnes of the Calumet Ecological Park Association.

Waste Management has offered to develop a 200-acre park in exchange for five more years of dumping at the landfill, located at 130th and the Bishop Ford Expressway. The proposal would require an exception to the city's two-year moratorium on landfill expansions, which has been repeatedly renewed. Pope's ordinance would bar the landfill-park proposal -- or any landfill expansions -- for 20 years.

Waste Management's proposal is opposed by three local chambers of commerce and ten community-based organizations, along with CEPA and the Southeast Environmental Task Force, Byrnes said.

Waste Management is now pushing a zoning ordinance to provide for "redevelopment" of landfills.

The CID landfill is the only open landfill in the city, and the last of scores of landfills in the Calumet region still in operation.

Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. is preparing a counterproposal for the site.

The environmental protection committee meets Tuesday, June 7 at 10 a.m at City Hall.

More Info:

Marian Byrnes at Calumet Ecological Park Association, 773-646-0436

Aaron Rosinski at Southeast Environmental Task Force, 773-704-7342

Ald. John Pope at Tenth Ward, 773-721-1999

U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. at 2nd District, 708-798-6000