A Bad Neighbor
Pilsen’s Battle Against H. Kramer
By Dorian Breuer
What do you say to the vice president and board member of the H. Kramer Company, a Randy Weil, when he tells you that the massive grey, metallic-smelling smoke emanating from his brass foundry plant in Pilsen is perfectly safe?
Hmm. “It’s basically only zinc oxide” he told me in 2002 in a meeting.
He also told me that zinc oxide is “biologically inert.” But I had my suspicions that there was more to the story than that. As it turns out, my suspicions were correct.
Kramer is a plant that makes brass ingots, and according to EPA data releases 3,800 pounds of lead into the air every year. Lead is known to cause brain damage in children under 6 and disrupt prenatal development. Kramer is located on a residential block and blocks away from a public park, and there are 6,500 kids under age 6 in Pilsen.
Kramer’s emissions are not controlled. Residents have videotaped smoke or steam coming out from between the bricks of the building. Kramer releases 2,300 pounds of such so-called fugitive toxic emissions every year. Kramer also releases particulate matter that may cause respiratory problems, asthma, and emphysema.
25th ward Alderman Daniel Solis’s office did not return calls about the pollution from H. Kramer.
So residents decided to take matters into their own hands.
By June of 2003 a videotape was made recording the massive pollution at the plant (available on line a pilsenperro.org/presskit.)
Residents and members of the Pilsen/Southwest side Greens decided to place an advisory question on the November 2004 ballot in the 2nd Precinct of the 25th ward – the precinct in which H. Kramer is located.
The question asked: “Shall our elected officials, especially Alderman Daniel Solis, insist that the H. Kramer and Co. brass foundry at 1345–47 W. 21st Street be investigated by the Chicago Department of the Environment and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency for repeated incidents of contamination of the air in Pilsen, and shall a public report be produced and made available at the Rudy Lozano branch library no later than July 1, 2005?”
This non-binding referendum passed by an overwhelming 95 percent.
The Pilsen/Southwest Side Greens held a press conference announcing these results and after calls were made by the media to Alderman Solis’ office, he responded immediately by personally calling the head of the Chicago Department of the Environment, Marcia Jimenez, asking that the department work with the group and fulfill the referendum request.
This was a great start to a campaign to clean up the H. Kramer facility.
Since that time, the community members concerned about the H. Kramer issue decided to form a new organization called the Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization (PERRO).
Since January of 2005, PERRO has been busy. The group held a press conference where the Department of the Environment was presented with three pages of questions to answer about H. Kramer. PERRO formed a committee to get independent environmental testing of pollution from the plant, and soil samples have already been taken.
PERRO also formed an outreach committee to get the word out to local residents about the H. Kramer plant and what they can do about it.
The goals of PERRO are to force the reluctant regulators and the company to clean the plant up so that the economic benefits in jobs and taxes for the community do not come at the cost of Pilsen’s health.
For more information about PERRO, go to pilsenperro.org or call 312-315-4950.