Favoring a greener environment is like favoring school reform: it’s a lot easier to say you’re for it than to bring it about.
Del Valle also found time to discuss his positions with the Reader. Spokespersons for Emanuel and Chico said their candidates weren’t available, and Braun’s office didn’t respond to interview requests.
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The Fisk and Crawford coal-powered plants emit five million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year, as well as sulfur dioxide and particulate matter, into the Latino-immigrant neighborhoods of Pilsen and Little Village. Del Valle joined environmental groups at a press conference last summer in support of the proposed Chicago Clean Power Ordinance, which would force the plants to shut down or convert to natural gas. Chico, who frequently invokes his childhood in the Back of the Yards neighborhood not far from one of the coal plants, said he supports the ordinance. Emanuel didn’t go that far, but he pledged to work closely with state and federal regulators and the City Council to make sure that Midwest Generation, which owns the plants, cleans them up “either by installing the necessary infrastructure to dramatically reduce the pollution they emit, or by converting to natural gas or another clean fuel.”
Along with closing or cleaning up the coal plants, environmental and planning groups say the new mayor must back the creation of new local renewable energy sources. The candidates all agree that the city and affiliated agencies should buy at least 20 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2014, and all but del Valle agreed to require all new and substantially rehabbed buildings to be wired to accommodate on-site renewable energy, such as rooftop solar panels, by 2014 (though not necessarily to produce such energy). Del Valle said he supported the concept but not the mandate. Green advocates say the new mayor will need to address not only where Chicago’s power comes from but how it’s distributed, because a “smarter” grid would reduce both electricity use and the risk of power outages.
WATER
The questionnaire also asked the candidates if they’d make source-separated recycling available to all homes and businesses by 2014. Emanuel and del Valle said they’re for it but wouldn’t commit to a 2014 deadline. Del Valle added, “If we’re going to commit to recycling, we’re going to have to consider how to pay for it,” and he said the funds might have to come from charging fees and partially privatizing the service. However, he promised to do that “the opposite of how the parking-meter deal was handled.”
