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This Month
Across the Midwest
December 2025 Newsletter
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[[link removed]] Victory! Chicago’s Lakefront is for People and Parks, not Toxic Waste [[link removed]] [[link removed]]
This month, we celebrated the culmination of years of organizing, legal advocacy, and public engagement with the announcement of a new shoreline park on Chicago’s Southeast Side. For decades, the site has been the dumping ground for toxic dredged waste, known as the Combined Disposal Facility, or CDF. The CDF was supposed to be closed in the 1990s and turned into a park, but the dump kept getting extensions.
When the Army Corps proposed a new dramatic expansion that would have added another 25 feet of towering waste on Lake Michigan, the community said enough is enough. ELPC, representing Friends of the Parks and Alliance of the Southeast, sued the Army Corps in federal court. We pushed Illinois EPA to oppose the permit, causing the Army Corps to scrap its plans. Now the Chicago Park District is committed to following through on the 45-acre Future Park #608 for community residents and all Chicagoans to use and enjoy.
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[[link removed]] Clean Energy [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] Reining in Rate Increases on Illinois Gas [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] The Illinois Commerce Commission heeded ELPC advice on Illinois’ gas utility Nicor and Ameren rate cases in two ways. First, the ICC ended “renewable natural gas” programs which charged customers without demonstrating cost-effective environmental value. Second, the ICC approved substantially smaller rate increases than the companies proposed.
[[link removed]] Clean Water [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] Trump Admin Continues Attack on the Clean Water Act [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] In November, the US EPA proposed sharply reducing the streams and wetlands protected by the Clean Water Act. This new proposal goes beyond the dramatic reductions in protections that resulted from the Supreme Court’s 2023 Sackett v. EPA decision. The Trump administration is explicitly seeking to “save” polluters money, while failing to account for the costs to the public.
[[link removed]] Wild & Natural Places [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] ELPC Gives a Dam About Anglers [[link removed]]
[link removed] [[link removed]] Consumers Energy is planning to sell 13 hydroelectric dams in Michigan to a private equity firm, prompting concerns about environmental impacts and ratepayers’ electric bills. ELPC is defending five fishing groups who see the sale as an opportunity to reconsider ecosystem impacts and improve conditions for fish migration.
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ELPC Thinks: How to Turn a Toxic Waste Dump into a Park
ELPC, Alliance of the Southeast, and Friends of the Parks give a behind-the-scenes look at how community power, legal strategy, and sustained advocacy stopped a proposed 25-foot-high vertical toxic waste dump on Chicago’s Southeast Side lakefront.
This conversation explored how an alliance of neighborhood organizations, civic groups, and environmental attorneys came together to defeat a misguided plan that would have further endangered an environmental justice community and Lake Michigan’s shoreline. Now, that same site will be restored and transformed into a public park.
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[[link removed]] News Roundup [[link removed]]
* Chicago Tribune : IDEM to Host Public Meeting for Project Maize Air Permit [[link removed]]
* Aurora Beacon-News: Suburban Legislators, Advocates Tout Single-Fare System, Transit-Oriented Development After Passage of Mass Transit Funding Bill [[link removed]]
* E&E News : Climate Fight Lingers for Rural Energy Grants [[link removed]]
* Detroit Free Press : Business, Environment Groups Call for Vetting of DTE Data Center Deal [[link removed]]
* Chicago Tribune : Illinois Lawmakers Urged to ‘Step Up’ and ‘Fight Like Hell’ as EPA Moves to Cut Wetlands Protections [[link removed]]
* The Center Square : Line 5 Opponents File Opening Brief in Michigan Supreme Court Case [[link removed]]
* Daily Herald : ‘Mustard on Ice Cream’: District Celebrates New Fleet of Electric School Buses [[link removed]]
* Detroit Free Press : State Requiring More from Largest Farms on How they Dispose of their Millions of Tons of Manure [[link removed]]
* News Channel 3 : Data Center Development: What Does it Bring to West Michigan? [[link removed]]
* Bridge Michigan : Michigan Oks Landmark Regulations that Push Up-Front Costs to Data Centers [[link removed]]
* Downtown News Magazine : US EPA Rollbacks [[link removed]]
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We're all in to protect the Midwest environment
Founded in 1993, the Environmental Law & Policy Center is the Midwest's leading environmental legal advocacy organization. We advocate, innovate, and litigate to protect the Midwest's environment from the Great Lakes to the Great Plains.
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ELPC
35 E Wacker Dr 1600
Chicago, IL 60601
United States
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