Environmental Justice: Mapping Coal Power Plants in Illinois and Chicago A project for the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization Michael Armstrong Marisol Becerra (LVEJO Co-Chair) LeAaron A. Foley Neil Loomis GEO242 3/17/20092 Project Summary The Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO) has been working since August of 1998 to address public health issues primarily in the southwest side of Chicago (Little Village, Pilsen, and North Lawndale), but is also is also involved in city, regional, and national networks and coalitions. Our project began with LVEJO due to the presence in Little Village of the Crawford power plant. The synchronicity of the largest coal-burning, electricity generating plants being located in an area with 45% of the population living 200% under the poverty level, along with Little Village being the largest Mexican American community in the United States (outside of Los Angeles), and with the youngest population of all Chicago’s 77 community area raised questions about whether power plants are disproportionately located within areas of lower socio-economic status and/or minority population. Our group’s project expanded this initial question about whether communities with a lower economic status and/or minority population (specifically Latino) were more likely to have a power plant located in their area from Little Village to the State of Illinois. This not only provided us with more cases to study (which meant that our results were more likely to be representative of a trend as opposed to a singular phenomena within Little Village), but also broadened the relevance of our project to communities throughout Illinois. The second question raised by the presence of the Crawford power plant was whether or not the location of a power plants in an area is significant, especially in relation to the health of the local population. The assumption of LVEJO was that the release into the air by power plants of chemicals such as Sulfur Dioxide (which causes coughing, wheezing, shortness or breath, nasal congestion, and inflammation and increases infant mortality rates) might have a negative affect on the health of the nearby population. Instead of only comprehensively researching all the health affects which might arise from the release of chemicals such as Sulfur Dioxide, Nitrogen Oxide, Carbon Dioxide, and Mercury which are emitted from coal burning power plants, we decided to also focus on the incidence of asthma in areas near power plants. This allowed us to better assess the correlation between power plants and hazardous health affects in communities. Both of our questions, about the placement of power plants and the health affects related to power plants, needed to be approached using GIS since they were fundamentally spatial in nature. Our group succeeded in not only spatially coding data on community and county areas and their median household income levels, the percent Latino population in these areas, the location of power plants along with each power plants’ toxic output in tons, but we also managed to present this information in a format which is easily understood and aesthetically pleasing. By creating these maps, along with giving our organization the data sets we used to make them, a major outcome of our project is that we have results which are useful for a variety of applications both by laypeople and those who can use our data to expand or focus our research. A project initially conceived in Little Village has now gone one step further in expanding the scope (and hopefully the impact) of LJEVO’s goal of environmental justice.3 Table of Contents I. Introduction..........................................................................4 1. Goals and Obejctives……………………………………4 II. Needs Assessment………………………………………...6 1. Need to Know Questions……………………………..6 2. Literature Review……………………………………..7 III. System Requirements……………………………………..9 IV. Data Acquisition………………………………………….10 V. Data Analysis…………………………………………….11 1. Information Products…………………………………11 2. Data Visualization……………………………………14 VI. Results……………………………………………………15 VII. Conclusions………………………………………………17 1. Summary……………………………………………..17 2. Recommendations for Further Studies………………17 VIII. Works Cited ……………………………………………..19 IX. Appendix A………………………………………………204 I. Introduction Little Village Environmental Justice Organization base is the Southwest side of Chicago: Little Village, Pilsen & North Lawndale. However, LVEJO works on city, regional and national networks & coalitions. LVEJO campaigns: Green Jobs/Clean Power/Climate Justice, Clean-up Toxic Land/More Parks, Public Transit Equity, Youth Activists Organizing as Today’s Leaders (YAOTL) and Urban Agriculture unite them with sister organizations throughout the Chicago Region and the U.S. The roots of LVEJO began in 1994 when parents, grandparents, neighbors, students, teachers and priests organized to move a proposed elementary school to a safer environmental location and began the Gary Public School Environmental Justice Project (GSEJP). 30 students and 20 parents participated in the GSEJP leadership program for 3 years. GSEJP voted to establish a community based organization (CBO), LVEJO, in June, 1997. LVEJO became incorporated as a 501-c-3 Community Based Organization (CBO) in August, 1998. Currently, LVEJO has 11 paid staff and 12 board members. South Lawndale, also known as Little Village is the largest Mexican American area in the U.S. outside of East Los Angeles, 45% of people live 200% beneath the poverty level and they are the youngest of all 77 Chicago community areas by age. Little Village has the least amount of open space per capita in Chicago but some of the most polluting industry, including the region’s largest coal-burning electrical generating plant: Crawford. When Marisol Becerra, a 2008 winner of the distinguished Earth Island Institute Brower Youth Award, was growing