In Illinois the Illinois State Beach Park provides summer shore relief for thousands of residents. In Chicago proper, one of the most popular beaches is Oak Street Beach, which has one of the largest deep water swimming areas available for public use. That makes it the training ground for hundreds of triathletes, scuba divers and long distance swimmers.
However immediately adjacent to the State Beach Park is an EPA Superfund site in Waukegan formerly belonging to Johns-Mansville. This 150-acre asbestos disposal area contains about three million cubic yards of abandoned and currently illicit products and wastewater sludge containing asbestos, lead, chromium and other toxics, according to the EPA.
In 2002 the EPA found that the site has periodically been releasing liquid into Lake Michigan that contains millions of asbestos fibers per liter. Currents force this material southward towards Oak Street Beach, the popular downtown shoreline that is surrounded by Chicago high rises.
Illinois environmentalists have issued a series of steps that beach users should utilize if they choose to visit Oak Street Beach. The Environmental News Service provides a detailed list of suggestions that lists precautionary steps beachgoers in Chicago should utilize.
Leakage from Superfund sites is not that unusual, as battles to get them cleaned up often take years of legal wrangling. Moreover, Johns Mansville declared bankruptcy over the asbestos debacle, which puts their liability over continuing emissions from the site into question.
In any case, Illinois has a toxic grenade in its hands, with a Superfund site as toxic as this one which is adjacent to a state park and which has shown a consistent pattern of releasing asbestos fibers and other toxics that are carried southward to Chicago area beaches – and has been for many, many years.
