It may be called Operation Silver Shovel, but there was nothing precious or gleaming about the kind of shoveling that government mole John Christopher and others of his ilk did.
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They took advantage of a legal loophole and exploited the economics of the late 1980s and early 1990s to make millions in profits by piling up mountains of construction debris on vacant lots in poor residential or industrial neighborhoods.
Along the way, Christopher’s relentless schmoozing of politicians to get hauling and dumping contracts provided government investigators with a ready-made mole for their ongoing investigation of Cook County corruption.
Illegal dumping would seem to be an unlikely starting point for a corruption probe. Attempts to secure zoning breaks, judicial favoritism or juicy contract concessions have been the screwdrivers that investigators have used to pry the lid off Cook County’s ever-teeming can of political worms. As bait, illegal dumps would seem as tempting as a hunk of limburger cheese. But one measure of the stakes that were involved in the dumping and hauling business is the magnitude of the legacy that Christopher and other operators left.
The Roosevelt Road mountain, where some 700,000 cubic yards of debris were dumped in little more than two years, will cost an estimated $14 million to remove, and cleaning up the other sites–at least four others are on the city’s list–will cost additional millions.
These dumps, which started at about the same time, differ from the more numerous fly dumps, which are generally vacant lots where anybody can get rid of an old mattress, a drum of noxious chemicals or a rusted-out car.
“These larger sites are obviously more organized than a fly dump,” said David R. Inman, assistant commissioner of the city’s Environment Department. “These sites were literally sites where people were standing at the gate and saying, `You go dump it over there.’ “
The fact that they all came into being at one time gives a clue to why they started at all. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, several big road projects were under way or on the boards, such as the widening of Cicero Avenue and the Tri-State Tollway and the reconstruction of the Dan Ryan and Kennedy Expressways.
At the same time, fees for dumping waste in licensed landfills shot up because of the ballyhooed garbage crisis of the late 1980s.
All that Christopher and others, such as the Niagara Group and Mass Excavating Consultants, had to do was to charge less than a legal landfill and the trucks started coming.
Inman said Christopher charged from roughly $4 to $10 a cubic yard. Legitimate landfills were charging at least $20.
There was as much competition between the illegal dumpers as there is now between long-distance telephone companies.
“When there was a lot of competition between these places, they would literally call me up and squeal on each other,” Inman said. “They had an uneasy relationship. Sometimes, they were the best of buddies and business associates. When they were running full tilt, one would act as a kind of subcontractor of the other and take loads that the other couldn’t handle.”
Christopher kept all the tickets and invoices of his illegal operation, which has aided city officials in determining which companies dumped at his sites.
As the piles of broken concrete and chunks of asphalt mounted, the city tried to shut the sites, according to Environment Department officials. The city logged its first complaint about the Roosevelt Road site on June 6, 1990. The city filed suit June 27 to shut the site.
But the city code did not require permits for sites that claimed to be recycling construction debris, as Christopher and others maintained. That left the city powerless until lawyers could persuade the courts that the operations were dumps, not recycling yards. Dumps require permits.
Although not considered an environmental hazard, construction-debris sites invite other kinds of illegal dumping such as soil tainted with gas from underground storage tanks.
City officials are bracing in the expectation that toxic chemicals will turn up at the sites. So far, samples have revealed little to no contamination.
For neighborhoods such as the one around the dump at Roosevelt Road and Kostner Avenue, the damage has been done. The ugly, jagged mound of concrete, dirt and other garbage rises above the struggling community. It is by far the largest presence in the neighborhood, covering two extra-large city blocks bordered by Kildare, Fifth and Kostner Avenues and the area’s once-vibrant but now virtually empty commercial street, Roosevelt Road.
“It’s incredible what has happened to that poor neighborhood,” Inman said. “Over the course of what has happened there, it has become East Beirut. The street is torn up, buildings are now abandoned and at one point, kids at Sumner Elementary School couldn’t go outside for recess because of the dust problem.”
Long-time resident Lucien Johnson, who lives a block from the dump, said the ever-present dust from the site aggravates a respiratory problem.
“It just spoils the neighborhood,” said Foster Slaughter, 75. “It lowers our property values. People don’t want to rent here because of the dust. They don’t want to buy because of the dust. We don’t have any control over what’s going on.”
By contrast to the plainly visible Roosevelt Road mountain, most other illegal dumps around Chicago are tucked away in obscure corners of the urban landscape, isolated from residential areas amid the grit and noise of factories and warehouses.
Nonetheless, the areas tend to be lower-income black and Latino communities.
Stefan Noe, staff lawyer for Citizens for a Better Environment in Chicago, said it is no coincidence that nationwide hazardous-waste facilities and dumps tend to be in minority communities.
“I would argue that low-income and minority communities tend to be more susceptible because they seem to be juxtaposed close to abandoned industrial sites where dumping occurs,” he said.
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In any event, the era of organized illegal dumping of construction debris seems to have ended. In 1993, the city code was amended to require would-be recycling operations to obtain a permit, which subjects them to minimum operating standards to guarantee that recycling occurs.
The economics of the mid-1990s also are different. Recycling of asphalt and concrete has grown as the cost of raw materials and trucking expenses have increased. Old asphalt can be ground up and combined with new asphalt to make new pavement, and old concrete roadbeds can be crushed to make what Illinois Department of Transportation officials call “porous granular embankment,” or the sublayer of roadways that provides drainage and stability. Much of the old Kennedy Expressway was recycled in this way.
Much of the Roosevelt Road mound also will be recycled in this way. Last week, bulldozers and dump trucks began to eat away at the 70-foot-high heap. As part of a settlement agreement with the city, the first work is being done by Lindahl Brothers, identified by the city as the biggest source of dumped material at the site.
Lindahl has agreed to haul away 100,000 tons of material, which it will take to its recycling operation along the Stevenson Expressway.
It is just the start of a long cleanup. With an estimated 700,000 tons of construction debris on the site, 200 truckloads a day could be hauled away five days a week for two years before the last of the debris would disappear.
The city is still seeking a settlement with five other haulers.
Lindahl is not talking about its cleanup or its history of dumping at the site. Repeated calls to the company’s Bensenville office were not returned.
And so, slowly, the mound is being eroded. A manufacturing firm and a movie theater chain have made commitments to build on the site once the debris is removed, according to Ald. Michael Chandler (24th).
“I don’t want people to think of this ward as one that they can come to and dump in,” he said. “But that becomes the mentality. Dumping breeds dumpers.”