Toxic Acme site on Southeast Side picked for EPA Superfund cleanup

Brian Ernst/Sun-Times file

The long-abandoned Acme Steel coke plant on the Southeast Side poses “significant threats to human health and the environment” and should be cleaned up under the government’s Superfund program, President Joe Biden’s administration said.

The Acme site spreads across more than 100 acres and sits near the Big Marsh and Indian Ridge Marsh city parks on South Torrence Avenue. The location was once used to produce the steel-making fuel coke for much of the last century but shut down operations more than two decades ago.

Three years ago, the community group Southeast Environmental Task Force petitioned the government to take action on the toxic site so it could be reused. State officials said in a 2007 report that cancer-causing chemicals in the soil posed a risk.

Cyanide and mercury are among the harmful chemicals and metals found through recent testing of the Acme soil and surrounding areas used for fishing may be contaminated as well, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said.

“The site threatens nearby surface water bodies, which include wetlands and areas sometimes used for fishing,” EPA said in a statement Wednesday.

The Acme site is a relic of Chicago’s steel-making past and is one of hundreds of so-called brownfield former industrial areas that have been contaminated and vacant for years.

“This area of Chicago is already overburdened with legacy contamination,” EPA Regional Administrator Debra Shore said in a statement.

In a separate announcement this week, the EPA said it is also adding the Federated Metals site in Hammond, Indiana, to a priority list for cleanup under the Superfund program, which was started in 1980 to clean up hazardous waste sites abandoned by their former owners.

Brett Chase’s reporting on the environment and public health is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.