Chicago's Petcoke Woes Are Far From Over

Jan Rodolfo went on a tour of the Southeast side of Chicago last week. When she got home, it took some time to wash off the residue of the trip. “I don’t remember touching much of anything,” says Rodolfo, the Midwest director of National Nurses United, a nationwide public-health advocacy group. “But I came home with petcoke under my fingernails that I had to work to scrub off.”

That didn’t bother her nearly as much, though, as what she saw on that tour: piles of petcoke in the middle of a residential neighborhood, right next to a youth baseball field, close to schools, and looming over backyards where children play. “I saw kids with petcoke dust on their faces,” says Rodolfo, describing the Dickensian scene. “It doesn’t rub off. You have to scrub it off.”