November 13, 2025

From Toxic Dump to Future Park: A Landmark Victory for Chicago’s Southeast Side

The story of strategy, legal expertise, and perseverance that stopped a toxic waste dump and turned it into a public park

By Judith Nemes, Senior Media Relations Specialist

“Chicago’s lakefront is for people and parks, not toxic waste dumps.”

That was ELPC’s mantra for the last five-plus years as we partnered with the Alliance of the Southeast (ASE) and Friends of the Parks (FOTP) to push back against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plans to build a 25-foot high toxic dredge waste dump along Lake Michigan’s shoreline on the Southeast Side of Chicago in an Environmental Justice community long overburdened with pollution.

The Army Corps was seeking approval from the Illinois EPA to build on top of a “confined disposal facility” (CDF) that the agency had been filling up with toxic dredged material from the Calumet River for almost four decades. This was an area promised to be turned into a park for the community once that CDF was filled to capacity. We were fighting to stop the toxic tower and to turn over the 43-acre site to the Chicago Park District for a long-promised park at the lakefront. 

Community activists amassed thousands of signatures from local residents and showed up at public meetings to voice opposition to the Army Corps’ new plans. Soon after, they reached out to ELPC for assistance. ELPC’s public interest pro bono attorneys sued the Army Corps in federal court on behalf of the community groups. The alliance used community power, legal strategy, sustained advocacy, and strong communications strategies to ultimately push the Illinois EPA to oppose a permit. The campaign caused the Army Corps to scrap its plans.

We won!

This week was the cherry on top with the City of Chicago and the Chicago Park District officially announcing the creation of Future Park #608. The event represented a full circle moment to finally bring a long-promised park to the community.

This hard-fought battle serves as a model coalition of community partners, public interest environmental attorneys and Illinois public officials working together to create a cleaner, greener future with a new lakefront park for Southeast Side residents and all Chicagoans to enjoy.

Thank you to Governor JB Pritzker, Attorney General Kwame Raoul, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency leaders, Alderman Peter Chico of the 10th Ward, U.S. Senator Dick Durbin, U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, State Senator Robert Peters, Mayor Brandon Johnson and Commissioner of the Dept of Environment Angela Tovar, and Chicago Park District Superintendent Carlos Ramirez-Rosa. And a special thank you to all of the community leaders and advocates who worked together to get this done. Bravo all! We did this together.

This is a victory for protecting environmental justice communities, for protecting Lake Michigan and our clean drinking water, and for transforming industrial sites into new lakefront parks.