Environmental Progress - Winter 2000

“Green” Uses For Penalty Dollars

Fines are funding environment-oriented undertakings

When companies commit serious violations of environmental laws, fines often are paid. In February 1999, representatives of U.S. EPA’s region 5, the IEPA, and the Illinois Office of the Attorney General met with representatives of 22 statewide and local environmental citizen groups to generate ideas for more creative uses for some of those fines in the greater Chicago area.

As a result of the meeting, the SEP Bank became a reality, based on a concept from the Greater Chicago Initiative. The GCI is a coalition of government agencies, businesses and citizens.

SEPs are supplemental environmental projects---projects done as a supplement to or a replacement for part of an enforcement fine. By encouraging greater environmental improvement while inspiring environmental and community responsibility by non-complying entities, the SEP program has been implemented by all three participating agencies. A few projects have been notable, such as a penalty imposed on Abbott Laboratories that resulted in the contribution of $200,000 to the Illinois Conservation Foundation for purchase of sensitive wetlands as part of a fine for polluting Lake Michigan.

But while SEPs have been available for several years, they have faced a major obstacle in timing; by the time agencies and violators began to discuss SEPs as a settlement option, it was often too late in the process to effectively develop and incorporate a project idea into the settlement.

The SEP Bank helps eliminate that problem. Many of the ideas originally brainstormed at the February meeting have been developed in greater detail to show projected costs and community contacts who can provide additional information. Possible SEP projects can be considered earlier in the enforcement process. It is expected that more such projects may be included in final Agency settlements.

Presently there are more than 35 projects ideas in the bank, grouped into classifications for facility specific on-site projects, land acquisition or restoration projects, and “other” environmental projects.

Facility specific projects focus on the violator taking steps at a facility to improve its environmental performance, such as fenceline monitoring, an environmental management system or a pollution prevention program. Land acquisition and restoration recommendations can be either site specific, such as Chicago River habitat projects, or general concepts, such as wetlands restoration. The final category chiefly includes general projects such as environmental education, community monitoring or neighborhood pollution prevention programs, or more specific projects such as contour mapping of the Lake Calumet region.

Elfring Tract/Redwing Slough Natural Area
Abbott Laboratories

One of the most significant Supplemental Environmental Projects to date in Illinois is the purchase of 10.02 acres known as the Elfring Tract to provide a critical buffer area for the Redwing Slough State Natural Area in the DesPlaines River watershed in Lake County.

The purchase was made possible by use of part of a fine imposed on Abbott Laboratories for causing pollution to Lake Michigan. Abbott contributed $200,000 to the Illinois Conservation Foundation under a SEP agreement, and the Foundation and the Illinois Department of Natural Resources arranged purchase of the sensitive wetlands.

The 734 acre Redwing Slough has been identified by the North American Waterfowl Management Plan as a critical component in Illinois. It is located near the town of Antioch. Defined as a palustrine emergent wetland, it has been classified as an Advanced Identification wetlands, a special category known to have unusually high functional value. Eight endangered or threatened bird species have been documented at the site, with six known to nest there.

Obtaining sufficient buffer area to minimize disturbance to nesting and migrating waterfowl is known to be key to successful management of the site, but acquisition of such buffer areas is increasingly difficult because of the slough’s location in the fastest growing county in the state.