Many consider Waukegan a “lunch bucket” town, yet city residents and officials are really a bunch of savvy environmental stewards.
Two recent examples of Waukeganites’ concern for the green life come during April, considered Earth Month by eco-conscious folks, with Earth Day observed this year on April 22. One is the continued use of solar panels at Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep on the city’s West Side; the other is plans to have “beach rangers” patrolling the city’s beach this summer.
Both follow Waukegan’s Sustainability Plan, adopted by the City Council back in 2021. The document is a supplement to the town’s Comprehensive Land Use Plan.
Perhaps city residents and officials are more aware of their natural surroundings, knowing of the detritus left from Waukegan’s industrial past. That legacy has left the city with five federally designated Superfund and Superfund alternative sites.
Those include the Johns-Manville site along the Lake Michigan shoreline on the city’s far North Side; the latent Outboard Marine Corp. complex along the lakeshore; the sprawling Yeoman Creek landfill on the near Northwest Side; and North Shore Gas North and South plants, also near the lakefront.
All have ongoing cleanup efforts with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and state agencies monitoring the sites and coordinating remediation. Despite these polluted locations, Waukegan is resilient and ready to protect its current environment and make it sustainable.
To that extent, the Yeoman Creek landfill is mostly a solar farm now, just as the rooftop at Cristo Rey Prep on Belvidere Road has been converted to capturing free energy from the sun. Since the installation of 932 solar panels in September 2024, the school occupying the former Kmart store has reduced its energy costs by more than $100,000, according to Steve Sadin’s front-page News-Sun story of April 4.
While supplying some 40% of the school’s power, clean, green energy also offers environmental benefits, especially as Illinois officials plan to wean us from fossil fuels by 2050. The Cristo Rey initiative follows Waukegan’s aggressive Sustainability Plan. A “Green Team” was formed in fall 2023 during Mayor Ann Taylor’s tenure.
The team, composed of multiple staff members appointed from various city departments, is tasked with issuing a yearly “Green Town” report. The city plan originally outlined eight action plans guiding Waukegan for years to come. Those included climate, air quality and energy; economic development; land use and the lakefront; water; mobility; drinking water; and waste and recycling.
It was a bold “living” document five years ago and continues to be so. Waukegan is one of the few Lake County communities to put a future dealing with environmental changes and concerns on paper.
Long-term aims are to reduce greenhouse gases, improve air quality, increase energy efficiency, and investigate renewable energy sources. Also, to support the development of green jobs, and develop and maintain an alternative transportation network.
Another issue of the plan is to preserve natural resources and enhance urban beautification. That’s where the paid beach rangers will come into play this summer, from Memorial Day to Labor Day, when the beach is open to fun and sun lovers.
Sixteen high school and college-age rangers will be deployed along the city’s popular Lake Michigan beach. They will act as ambassadors, monitors and caretakers, Lisa May, Waukegan’s lakefront coordinator, outlined in another front-page Sadin story on April 7.
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The caretaker part of the rangers’ jobs entails keeping the beach ship-shape through power washing benches, raking the sand and picking up loose trash. They also have been tutored in environmental ways, including about the return of endangered Great Lakes Piping Plovers, which have nested, remarkably, on the Waukegan shoreline. Their presence cements the city’s continued designation since 2022 as a Bird City Illinois.
Waukegan was one of the first “bird cities.” The Audubon Council of Illinois recognizes municipalities that meet criteria for bird-friendly practices, such as habitat creation, protection and monitoring of natural communities.
Waukegan’s favorite author Ray Bradbury wrote of the “Green Town” of his youth in his semi-autobiographical classic “Dandelion Wine” based on his early days in the city before his family moved to Southern California.
Lake County’s largest community is well on its way to being a different green town of the future.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor. [email protected]. X @sellenews.