New Chicago Air Quality Agenda Introduced
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Yesterday, on July 27, the city of Chicago announced the creation of a new air quality reform agenda that aims to improve Chicago’s air quality and ensure equitable economic growth simultaneously. Data from the Chicago Department of Public Health’s Air Quality and Health Report has led to this new reform agenda. The report found that all of Chicago faces a challenge with air quality issues such as ozone and particulate matter, but communities that experience more poverty and unemployment are more likely to experience poor health outcomes from air pollution. Air pollution is found to lead to an increased risk of chronic disease. Therefore, in addition to improving health, the air quality reform agenda hopes to change industrial and polluting zoning, create an Environmental Equity Working Group, and further reform air pollution regulations.
The air quality reform agenda includes an ordinance that will change Chicago’s Zoning Code to adjust where manufacturing and other polluting sites are allowed to be located to ensure they are separated from residences and small businesses. This specific ordinance will be presented in the September City Council meeting and voted on in October.
The new agenda looks to change the current rules that relate to industrial operations that produce air pollution, analyze the cumulative burden of polluting uses through a new regulatory process, and strengthen how air pollution enforcement and inspection operates. Finally, this agenda will create the Environmental Equity Working Group which will be a platform of community representatives, environmental leaders, and other local stakeholders that will advise the Chief Sustainability Officer and the city in their pursuit of a more equitable and environmentally friendly Chicago.
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