Chicago City Wire

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's administration has been advocating for the construction of a winterized tent camp to accommodate asylum-seeking migrants. The proposed site is a vacant shopping mall parking lot located in Morgan Park at 115th and Halsted. This initiative persists despite knowledge of significant environmental concerns associated with the property. On November 7, the City Council approved Johnson's plan to purchase the 6.5-acre site for $1 from New Albertsons LLC, the parent company of Jewel Foods, with an aim to establish a tent encampment capable of housing 1,500 migrants.

A week prior to this approval, on October 31, Johnson's administration received an environmental site assessment for the proposed migrant camp location. The report indicated evidence of underground fuel tanks and potential ground contamination from a former dry cleaning plant. It also noted that automobile service and filling stations had previously occupied the site. These findings were initially published by WTTW.

The report detailed:

●Records indicating that a 275-gallon underground fuel storage tank was installed on the premises in 1952. There is no record of its removal, suggesting potential environmental contamination that requires attention.

●The property at 115th and Halsted was once home to Victor's Valet, a dry cleaner, in 2011. "The potential exists for a release [of contaminants] impacting the subsurface soils and groundwater," according to the report.

●Property east of the proposed migrant camp was home to gas stations between 1960 and 1978; however, there are no records showing that underground fuel storage tanks had been installed or removed there.

The A3E consultants who authored the report recommended further investigation to evaluate conditions found in their summary "phase 1 report."

Only last week did Mayor Johnson announce a temporary halt to his plans addressing the housing crisis for asylum-seeking migrants through constructing temporary winterized tent camps including at Morgan Park site. City Hall did not mention the October 31 environmental study in its explanation for this decision.

Earlier this month, Prairie State Wire reported that Gov. J.B. Pritzker withdrew funding for Johnson's plan to accommodate 2,000 migrants in an encampment on former industrial land in the Brighton Park neighborhood. The governor's decision followed a ruling by the state environmental protection agency that contamination found at the site and City Hall's remediation efforts did not meet state standards for residential use.