07/30/2026
Check out this article by Finnegan Belleau in the Tribune about air pollution and air monitoring in Chicago. It features N4EJ’s work and shows how neighborhood-level pollution is a problem that doesn’t go away for some, unlike pollution from the wildfires that affects everyone, by focusing on MAT Asphalt’s impacts in McKinley Park.
In this article, Joe Haughey, the plant manager of MAT Asphalt, claims that the smell of burning asphalt in McKinley Park is not from MAT. Residents are easily able to pinpoint MAT as the source of these smells by visually confirming activity at the plant—emissions coming from their stacks and the truck traffic coming in and out of the MAT driveway as trucks are loaded with hot-mix asphalt. Additionally, we have MAT Asphalt production records that show details about how much asphalt is made at exactly when. Stay tuned for our analysis of MAT’s production records and how heavy production days line up with neighborhood complaints.
It’s not just noxious odors we’re dealing with in McKinley Park. Residents report feeling nausea, headaches, scratchy throats, etc., and we want to know how breathing asphalt fumes regularly impacts our long-term health.
While N4EJ is dedicated to air monitoring in SW Chicago, “our goal is not to know how bad the air we’re breathing is,” said Anthony Moser, board president of Neighbors for Environmental Justice, a community group based on the Southwest Side. “The goal is to breathe clean air.”
https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/07/26/chicago-air-quality-pollution-wildfire-smoke/?share=wolqgriq7lrhlph6lais
