Botched Little Village smokestack implosion wasn't my fault, Chicago official Marlene Hopkins says of fiasco

The Chicago city official who oversaw what turned out to be the botched implosion of a former coal-burning power plant in Little Village four years ago finally has spoken out about what happened, faulting a contractor and city health officials for the resulting dust storm that blanketed the neighborhood.

Marlene Hopkins, who was promoted by Mayor Brandon Johnson earlier this year to be the city's buildings commissioner, said Wednesday night that it was entirely the responsibility of the city Department of Public Health to make sure that dust would be controlled after the planned implosion that brought down an almost 400-foot chimney at the long-closed Crawford power plant on South Pulaski Road just north of the Stevenson Expressway. She also blamed a contractor hired by property owner Hilco Redevelopment.

“There was a dust-mitigation plan, and it was the requirement of the contractor," Hopkins said in an interview after a community meeting at which she met with neighborhood residents for the first time since the fiasco that covered Little Village in dust over Easter weekend 2020. “It was also the responsibility of the department of health to ensure it was being followed."

The meeting at Little Village Lawndale High School was the first time that Hopkins has met in a public setting with people affected by the dust storm, which led to a more than $12 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit and city and state fines.

Hopkins explained to the gathering of about three dozen people what the buildings department’s role is in a demolition and told them that implosions no longer are allowed in Chicago as a result of what happened. That's among the reforms City Hall has put in place since then.

At the time of the implosion, Hopkins was first deputy commissioner of the city agency.

She was singled out for some of the failures in a report by then City Hall Inspector General Joe Ferguson, who criticized a "not-my-job" mindset.

But then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed Hilco and its contractors.

Ferguson’s report also cited Dave Graham, an assistant commissioner with the city health department, for failing to take steps to control dust from an implosion, recommending disciplinary action as severe as firing. Graham — who still has that job — has declined to comment on the findings.

The inspector general's report was finished in 2021 but kept secret until the Chicago Sun-Times published it last year. The city still hasn't released the report to the public.

At Wednesday night's meeting, Lucky Camargo, a neighborhood resident, asked Hopkins about why Ferguson cited her in part for the botched implosion.

Hopkins said her department approved the Hilco permit and that her staff was responsible for seeing that the giant smokestack fell in a certain direction, which she pointed out it did.

But Hopkins said, "Dust falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Public Health. The Department of Buildings does not have staff that has that subject-matter expertise. We are not environmentalists. We’re not scientists. We don’t study any of the environmental impact."

That didn't satisfy Camargo, who said afterward: “She didn’t say anything that reassured me. No city employees — 'experts' — were able to prevent one of the city’s biggest administrative failures.”

Kim Wasserman, executive director of Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, who ran the meeting, said Dr. Olusimbo Ige, the city health commissioner, also was invited to attend but declined.

Last year, Ige replaced Dr. Allison Arwady,who was health commissioner at the time of the implosion.

Hilco was demolishing the former power plant to make way for a million-square-feet warehouse that's being leased to Target, a project that was community organizations opposed over concerns about truck traffic.