it's the little details that pollute a lot. OMC and Waukegan harbor... OMC is responsible for the nearly complete deadly contamination of Waukegan Harbor due to negligent commonplace daily disposal of hydraulic fluid through floor drains for deacdes

why is this of interest? Waukegan wants to make very expensive marinas, high rise condo's, overlooking golf courses on it's waterfront pay huge dividends to pay for other city improvements, and city leaders get rich (of course, what else?) (drop the bottom of this article for info on the crazy wealthy pensions of Waukegan, and what the connection is between them and the waterfront property they got the city to buy - it's a self fulfilling predefined retirement perfect plan)

What's the problem?

OMC's manufacturing facilities spilled a million pounds of toxic chemicals and helped make Waukegan Harbor a national Superfund site.

OMC used PCBs in hydraulic fluids at its boat motor manufacturing plant, and TCE, a chlorinated solvent it used to degrease newly made parts.

From 1961 to about 1972, OMC used a hydraulic fluid containing PCBs in its die-casting works. Spilled hydraulic fluids washed down floor drains and were flushed into Waukegan Harbor or onto OMC property.   https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-09-27-9809270257-story.html

"Waukegan was called the worst PCB mess in the country," recalled Cameron Davis, executive director of the Lake Michigan Federation in Chicago, an environmental watchdog organization.

Paul Kakuris, a director of a Lake County conservation group, charges that OMC and the Johns Manville Corp., which created an asbestos Superfund site in Waukegan, both have tainted the region with pollution.  "These are two massive corporations in the process of leaving the area, after committing atrocities to the environment," said Kakuris. "It appears those corporations are getting off the hook."

Who paid for the clean up?

Tax payers. Everyone that profitted from OMC? Tthey disappeared after it stopped being profitable, and then it went bankrupt. All the pollution it caused was left for taxpayers to deal with... aka, rich get richer, poor get fucked, and have to clean up the mess, and pay for it, after the country club set take off for other money making ventures

Johns-Manville manufactured products and deposited asbestos-containing waste at this site from 1928 until the late 1980s.

The Waukegan Pipeline Service Company built the NSG South Plant in 1897 and North Shore Gas purchased it in 1900. The plant operated from 1898 to 1946 except for a stoppage from 1927 to 1935, and was razed in 1951. On-site features included a coal gas condensing building, a purifying building, a generator building and a laboratory. Four tar wells and five storage tanks, three for gas and two for oil, were also located on-site.

The Outboard Marine Corporation (OMC) site is located in the northern section of Waukegan Harbor in Waukegan, Illinois. OMC has been there since 1925. The 100-acre area along the shore of Lake Michigan is the former location of an outboard-boat-motor manufacturing plant and a former railroad tie, coal gasification and coke plant facility. Contaminants of concern include polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which OMC used in hydraulic fluids at its boat motor manufacturing plant, and trichloroethene (TCE), a chlorinated solvent that OMC used to degrease newly made parts.

The OMC Superfund site is located in the northern section of the Waukegan Harbor area. The 100-acre site along the shore of Lake Michigan is the former location of an outboard boat motor manufacturing plant and a former railroad tie, coal gasification and coke plant facility. OMC declared bankruptcy in December 2000 and abandoned its manufacturing plant in 2002.

Contaminants of concern at the OMC site include polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, which the business used in hydraulic fluids at its boat motor manufacturing plant, and trichloroethene (TCE), a chlorinated solvent it used to degrease newly made parts.

PCBs are found in Waukegan Harbor and on the OMC Plant 2 site and TCE is found in the ground water under the OMC Plant 2 site.

PCBs aka Polychlorinated Biphenyls.  PCBs are extremely permanent in the environment; they do not break down into less harmful chemicals over a long period of time. PCBs may enter the food chain and be consumed by humans, they are stored in the fatty tissues of animals and humans and are extracted with normal body waste. These compounds have no smell or taste and exist as either oily liquids or solids. They result in skin irritations (rashes and acne) and irritation to the nose and throat. Long-term exposure to PCBs can cause liver damage and has been shown to cause cancer in laboratory animals.

Don Wadleigh, operators manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Chicago district, said traces of PCBs and other pollution remaining in Waukegan Harbor are among the obstacles that have prevented the corps from dredging the harbor for navigation since 1969, the last time the harbor was dredged.

Dredging the harbor is seen as a major step to attracting industry to the area, both to get rid of the remaining pollution and to deepen the harbor so big ships can sail in fully loaded with cargo.

https://cumulis.epa.gov/supercpad/cursites/csitinfo.cfm?id=0500083
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-05/documents/waukegan-cip-5-7-15.pdf

Waukegan is one of the oldest communities in Illinois. The city began as a French trading post in 1725 that existed until 1760, but the area was known to travelers as early as the late 1600s. Explorers Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette encamped there in 1673 during their journey to find the Mississippi River.
Waukegan was also home to the Potawatomi Native American settlement. In 1833, the Native Americans transferred their land to the U.S. Government, opening up the area to eastern settlers. In 1835, Thomas Jenkins of Chicago constructed a two-story frame building on the site of the former trading post, in the area of today’s Sheridan Road and Water Street. The access to Lake Michigan for transporting goods in and out of the area attracted many eastern settlers, leading to the creation of a village.
In 1841, Little Fort was designated as the county seat for Lake County. The village continued to grow in the 1840s, becoming the government and commercial center of Lake County. Between 1844 and 1846, the population grew from 150 to 750. The village was incorporated as a town in 1849 and Little Fort was officially renamed to Waukegan, the Native American translation of “fort” or “trading post,” with a total population of 2,500. It was officially incorporated as a city in 1859.

Jack Benny, Ray Bradbury and Otto Graham Jr. are among the community’s most famous former residents.

https://pergelator.blogspot.com/2010/07/canoe-and-15-hp-motor.html
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1998-09-27-9809270257-story.html

Waukegan, of course, has nearly 900 city pensioners who'll be paid over $200,000 a year, without actually paying much into their pensions.

What is much? Paying in 3%. Yup, that's a 97% pure profit.

Get a govt job my friends, once you look at the benefits of course, they seem to pay off handsomely, and there seems to be nothing that will ever change that, as the rich people that profit from these pensions, are the ones that put them in place, and they AIN'T going to do anything to stop that. San Diego is a prime example. It bankrupted the city, and wasn't discovered until after the buy-in phase was complete. Yes, the politicians and city employees could "buy" years of employment on paper, retire early (in their 50s) and get fabulous pensions in perpetuity. But don't believe me... read  https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/ct-lns-pension-waukegan-st-0305-20150308-story.html

Combined, there are 893 retirees from those groups earning pensions in excess of $100,000 annually, including 12 Lake County public schools retirees and two College of Lake County retirees whose annual pensions pay out more than $200,000 per year, according to the TUA data. Meanwhile, 743 Lake County public schools retirees, 113 College of Lake County retirees and 23 Lake County government retirees have annual pensions between $100,000 and $200,000, the group's data showed.

According to TUA data, one retired educator from Lincolnshire-Prairie View District 103 paid $326,507 into the state's retirement fund, retired at age 55 and began collecting an annual pension of $258,163. The TUA claims the lifetime payout for that pension, assuming a life expectancy of 85, could amount to more than $11.1 million. This would mean that the employee's total contribution would represent 2.9 percent of the projected payout.

A list of the top 44 Waukegan pensions paid through the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund — including those for Waukegan Park District employees but not police or fire personnel — found annual payouts that include $73,715 for a former city engineer who retired at age 57 and contributed $84,659 into municipal retirement funds.

One of the names on the list of Waukegan municipal government's top pensioners was Ray Vukovich, who served as the city's director of governmental services from 2001 to 2010 and retired at age 51. The TUA listed his annual pension at $70,171 after paying a total of $54,684 toward retirement funds.

"It's not fair from the standpoint that they followed the rules that were in place," Vukovich said. "They paid into the system (and) when they were ready for retirement, they filed their paperwork and they're receiving what the system set up for them. These are people who planned their lives around what they'd receive.

Waukegan ponders fines for not shoveling snow "Is the system perfect? No. Does it need fixing? Yes," Vukovich said. "If I got a call from Springfield saying, 'Would you volunteer to serve on a committee to discuss pension reform?' I'd gladly do it. But this is a problem that didn't get created in the last six months. It's been 30 or 40 years in the making."

https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/ct-lns-pension-waukegan-st-0305-20150308-story.html