The Mountains of Black Dust Next Door Were Covering Them in Grime. So They Fought Back. After BP started storing millions of tons of a refinery byproduct on the Southeast Side, residents fought back. Their story, told through photos

She eventually learned that the dust was petroleum coke, or petcoke, a carbon byproduct of oil refining. Carted in on trains from the refinery BP was expanding in Whiting, Indiana, it was being stored at two sites operated by KCBX Terminals, a Koch brothers company—each site just a few hundred yards from residential areas. Bautista and others claim anecdotally that people living nearby have since seen a sharp increase in respiratory problems, including asthma. “There are so many sick kids,” she says. “My cousin’s daughter and a lot of my friends’ kids are constantly going to the doctor.”

Three years ago, Southeast Side residents started noticing mountains of black dust—some five stories high—rising along the banks of the Calumet River. “It looked like Mordor,” says Olga Bautista, a longtime resident of Vet’s Park. “It took a while to process how grave the problem was.”

KCBX insists that the dust is not blowing into residential areas. But a study last year by the city found evidence of petcoke on sidewalks in adjacent neighborhoods. The Environmental Protection Agency has cited KCBX for violating air pollution regulations at both sites. The agency also says that petcoke can be harmful if inhaled in large enough quantities. Says Bautista: “What’s happening here is a human rights issue. It’s a crisis.”


Photographer Terry Evans became aware of the problem in 2013 when a representative from the Natural Resources Defense Council gave her a tour of the 10th Ward. “I was stunned by how close the piles were to the neighborhoods,” recalls the Hyde Park resident. She began photographing the petcoke mounds from the air and the residents from the ground. She was impressed by “how fiercely committed the community is to making changes.”

In February, after staging several rallies and marches and writing protest letters, residents celebrated a victory: BP, under pressure from Mayor Emanuel, announced it would no longer store petcoke in Illinois. But the fight is not over. Although KCBX is closing one site altogether, it plans to convert the other into a transfer facility, where petcoke will be loaded onto barges for storage elsewhere. That means uncovered railcars could continue to transport the material to the site on a near-daily basis. And that doesn’t sit well with Bautista: “If we’re going to fully protect the people who live here, we need to get it out of here altogether.”