Cicero officials are planning to mount opposition to a proposed domestic sewage-recycling station in Stickney that they say would worsen an already-foul odor that bothers residents on Cicero’s south side.
In late 2002, a similar proposal for a recycling station was derailed after an outcry from Cicero officials and residents. The district was criticized for not providing adequate public notification of plans, including ensuring that word reached the community’s growing Spanish-speaking population, said Trustee Dennis Raleigh.
This time around, Raleigh said, “They seem to have done everything that we told them to do.”
But he and other Town Board members say the district ought to look elsewhere to a more remote area for the facility.
“They say it doesn’t smell,” said Town President Ramiro Gonzalez. “We say, `Well, you don’t live here.'”
Raleigh said that especially in the summer, winds from the south send an unpleasant odor wafting over Cicero’s south end.
“I always tell people when I drive down the Stevenson Expressway, I can smell when I’m home,” Raleigh said.
The Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago signed a 20-year contract with Metropolitan Biosolids Management of Evanston to design, build and operate the facility on 7 of the 570 acres occupied by the Stickney water-reclamation plant. It is at 6001 W. Pershing Rd., just south of the Cicero border near Morton Community College.
According to the National Biosolids Partnership, a non-profit alliance whose members include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, biosolids are “nutrient-rich solid organic matter recovered from the treatment of domestic sewage in a wastewater treatment facility. … Biosolids are generated when solids generated during the treatment of domestic sewage are treated further to meet regulatory requirements.”
In a notice issued Feb. 27, Metropolitan Biosolids stated that “any potential odorous emissions from the facility will be treated by state-of-the-art odor control systems.”
The plant would dry 150 tons of biosolids daily and turn them into pellets that would be sold as organic fertilizer. Metropolitan Biosolids emphasized that the facility would process biosolids solely from the Stickney plant and will not treat any hazardous materials.
Currently, the district processes its biosolids by storing them in sludge lagoons in Hodgkins and moving them to drying cells.
Metropolitan Biosolids has indicated it plans to file a request for local siting approval with Stickney at the end of March. As required by state law, the village must hold a public hearing three to four months after that filing.
