Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com, February 4, 2015
By: Bob Seidenberg
Evanston officials have called on the Nicor Gas Company to take responsibility for the contamination detected in and around James Park last year, in a heated fight now taking place between the entities in federal court over who is responsible for the cleanup.
In pleadings filed Feb. 2 in the U.S. Federal Court’s Northern District, Evanston officials rebutted Nicor’s claim that James Park’s former status as a landfill was the likely cause of high methane readings detected at several sites in the park in spring of 2014.
City officials have pointed to a former gas manufacturing site, the Skokie Manufactured Gas Plant, where Nicor along with Commonwealth Edison is conducting an environmental cleanup, as a much more likely culprit.
Samples taken from soil borings at the 55-acre James Park, located along Dodge Avenue and Oakton Street, produced “a petroleum product that is not natural to James Park,” city attorneys, including Corporate Counsel Grant Farrar, said in their filings.
Material dug up “was consistent with the operations of the Skokie Manufactured Gas Plant,” they said.
The plant located across McCormick Boulevard next to Skokie’s Sports Park on Oakton supplied a number of users in the James Park area with their fuel needs before ceasing operation in 1932.
Attorneys for Nicor, in court documents filed in November, maintained that studies point to the park’s former status as a landfill as a much more likely cause, and argued the company should not be held liable for remediation costs.
The company maintained studies by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, as well as a city study and its own leak study, “all clearly demonstrate that the methane detected in the area of James Park is not and cannot be from the Nicor system.”
Nicor mains are located three to four feet below the surface, while the contaminated soil was found in bedrock close to 50 feet beneath the surface, the company noted..
“The city’s suggestion that methane gas, which is lighter than air, migrated 49 feet or more downward as well as horizontally … is illogical and defies the laws in physics,” Nicor attorneys contended.
City attorneys argued that the evidence Nicor relied on had scant scientific backup.
The consultants in the MWRD report didn’t make any form of analysis to determine how contaminated materials “would be able to travel” from James “and occur at the concentrations and pressures found at the MWRD site,” nor offer any analysis on the difference in materials at the two places, attorneys argued.
Nicor argued that the city is holding the company hostage over essential improvements the company needs to make to other segments of its system in an effort to obtain leverage on the methane issue.
The company has has placed high priority on work over a 36-block area in southeast Evanston, replacing cast iron mains, many more than 60 years old, with high-pressure, plastic main and service lines.
The city admitted that it imposed a temporary halt on work Nicor was to perform, but that was because that work was close to where the city was doing soil tests to determine the source of the high methane counts.
“Any delay in the performance of Nicor’s work was based on the company’s initial refusal to enter into an evidence preservation agreement,” the city said.
In an official city statement issued Monday, Evanston officials stressed that the city values its relationships with its corporate partners, and its productive relationships with utility companies servicing Evanston residents.
Officials made “good faith efforts with Nicor in 2014 to work through issues affecting the safety and health of residents in the James Park neighborhood,” the statement said. “The City worked to bridge the gap with Nicor in order to protect school children at Dawes School, sports teams using James Park, and seniors at the Levy Center.
“Instead of partnering with the city on solutions, Nicor and its high-priced attorneys raced to the courthouse steps.”
In their initial complaint filed in November, Nicor attorneys said they took court action after they were served a 90-day notice by the city, indicating Evanston would sue Nicor under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
Nicor then moved forward to obtain a court declaration that it is not liable for the presence or remediation of any stray methane material at James.
City officials say they tried to work collaboratively with Nicor on the issue but were rebuffed, and that the company delayed in providing information to assist in the city’s investigation.
“Nicor has repeatedly served the city with lengthy information requests, which resulted in the city providing over 40,000 pages of documents,” officials pointed out in the statement.
Jae Miller, a Nicor spokesperson, said Feb. 3 that the company has cooperated with the city in its landfill investigation, and that it is reviewing Evanston’s latest filings and will respond within the time allowed by the court.
The city has hired several consultants on the James Park contamination issue. Aldermen approved a detection system last year to monitor Dawes Elementary and the Levy Senior Center.