As the mayor of Arlington Heights, Jim Tinaglia leads the charge to build a Chicago Bears stadium there. In his private job as an architect, Tinaglia said he would be very leery of building on the rival proposed site in Hammond, Indiana.
“I would throw up the red caution flags immediately,” he told the Tribune. “I’ve worked on enough sites with gas stations or dry cleaners or some sort of hazardous material to know it contaminates the ground. I would be very concerned about selecting a site like that.”
Tinaglia is not the first to voice concerns about the site near Wolf Lake in Hammond. In the past, area residents fought to get the site cleaned up. The result was a golf course built on top of a mountain of slag — a rocky waste product from steel production — that was capped with bio-solids that are treated human waste.
The location also sits near several hazardous waste sites, across the street from an oil tank storage complex, and in the shadow of the Midwest’s largest oil refinery.
Bears officials wouldn’t comment for this story, but have indicated they are very comfortable with the site so far. They already have drilled into the ground to conduct soil tests, and continue to do their due diligence to verify the land’s viability. But the site’s heavy industrial past and surroundings raise questions about its suitability for a massive stadium complex.
Environmental concerns have not been part of lawmakers’ ongoing debate over where the Bears should move. Earlier this year, Indiana lawmakers authorized spending $1 billion, along with $2 billion from the team, to build an enclosed stadium in Hammond. The site’s main attribute is its proximity to Chicago, sitting just over the state border, about a 30-minute drive from downtown.
Illinois lawmakers may decide this week whether to counter Indiana’s offer with a proposal to let megaproject sponsors like the Bears negotiate long-term property tax breaks with local taxing bodies. The Bears also say they need the state to pay for some $855 million in infrastructure costs, like roads and sewers, for the former Arlington International Racecourse site.
Environmental groups contacted by the Tribune stayed largely silent about the Hammond project. Some were relieved the site wasn’t in nearby Gary, where it could have intruded on the Indiana Dunes National Park.
Michael Boos, executive director of the nonprofit Association for the Wolf Lake Initiative, previously said the stadium proposal doesn’t fit with the group’s mission to protect and improve the Wolf Lake watershed, which is home to fish, wildlife and wind surfers.
“The Bears would make things a little overwhelming, and I’m not sure it wouldn’t affect the lake,” he told the Tribune earlier this year. “We defeated a third airport (in Gary), and now we’re trying to defeat the Bears.”
Local officials say they aren’t worried. Hammond Mayor Thomas McDermott Jr. defended the site as an example of how environmental cleanup should be handled.
“I understand people want to take a close look, but the Bears know far more about environmental concerns in that area than any of us, because they’re spending millions of dollars on it,” he said.
Chicagoans may have an unrealistic memory of the area from its industrial past, but it has been cleaned up significantly, McDermott said.
“Thirty or 40 years ago, northwest Indiana was a very different place,” he said. “Much of that was from the State Line Generating coal plant that was shut down (in 2012). We’ve been tightening emissions over the years and really cleaned up our air a lot.”
The federal EPA still is dealing with hazardous waste sites in the area, like the Superfund site at the former Federated Metals smelting facility, where elevated levels of lead and arsenic were found. The EPA did a partial cleanup, and is studying the site to determine remaining contamination and the cleanup of residential properties.
In addition, the EPA is working to clean up the nearby Grand Calumet River, one of the most heavily industrialized areas in the United States, which contains pollutants including polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), heavy metals, oil and grease. The EPA recently announced a $200 million project agreement to remove contaminated sediment across 100 acres of the Indiana Harbor and Ship Canal, Lake George Canal and Grand Calumet River.
The BP Whiting refinery, BP’s largest refinery in the world, covers some 1,400 acres, and belches flames and smoke from towering stacks that likely would be within the view and smell of fans tailgating on the site. Flares went off after the refinery experienced a brief power outage last month.
But McDermott said none of those sites are directly adjacent to the Bears site, which could cover up to 350 acres . A former Navy diver who competes in the Chicago triathlon, McDermott said residents regularly fish, bike and attend concerts at Wolf Lake, next to the Bears site. He described it as a recreational oasis.
“This is an industrial area and we do have legacy issues we’re dealing with,” he conceded, “but we’re not worried about the Bears finding anything that’s a deal-breaker.”
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday he expects the General Assembly to pass legislation before the end of the spring legislative session May 31 incentivizing the Bears stadium in Arlington Heights.
