
KCBX Terminals is a
petcoke
Petroleum coke, abbreviated coke or petcoke, is a final carbon-rich solid material that derives from oil refining, and is one type of the group of fuels referred to as cokes. Petcoke is the coke that, in particular, derives from a final cracki ...
,
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as stratum, rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen ...
,
salt
Salt is a mineral composed primarily of sodium chloride (NaCl), a chemical compound belonging to the larger class of salts; salt in the form of a natural crystalline mineral is known as rock salt or halite. Salt is present in vast quanti ...
,
slag
Slag is a by-product of smelting ( pyrometallurgical) ores and used metals. Broadly, it can be classified as ferrous (by-products of processing iron and steel), ferroalloy (by-product of ferroalloy production) or non-ferrous/ base metals (by ...
,
cement
A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel (aggregate) together. Cement m ...
, and
clinker
Clinker may refer to:
*Clinker (boat building), construction method for wooden boats
*Clinker (waste), waste from industrial processes
*Clinker (cement), a kilned then quenched cement product
* ''Clinkers'' (album), a 1978 album by saxophonist St ...
processing facility and
ocean freight
Maritime transport (or ocean transport) and hydraulic effluvial transport, or more generally waterborne transport, is the transport of people (passengers) or goods (cargo) via waterways. Freight transport by sea has been widely used throug ...
docking and loading services facility owned by
Koch Industries
Koch Industries, Inc. ( ) is an American privately held multinational conglomerate corporation based in Wichita, Kansas and is the second-largest privately held company in the United States, after Cargill. Its subsidiaries are involved in th ...
located in
Hegewisch, Chicago
Hegewisch (pronounced "heg-wish" by the locals) is one of the 77 community areas of Chicago, Illinois, located on the city's far south side. It is bordered by the neighborhoods of Riverdale and South Deering to the west, the East Side to th ...
.
Pollution and protests
Residents around the facility have claimed that dust blowing from the facility into their neighborhood is making them sick. On April 12 and May 8 of 2014 KCBX was found to be in violation of air quality standards. In 2014, the company announced that it would build an enclosure to the land by 2016 at a cost of $120 million. After requests for a time extension, it was announced in 2015 that the plant would be closed in late 2015. The site currently handles over 11 million tons of petcoke per year. In 2017, it was reported that the facility was a
manganese
Manganese is a chemical element with the symbol Mn and atomic number 25. It is a hard, brittle, silvery metal, often found in minerals in combination with iron. Manganese is a transition metal with a multifaceted array of industrial alloy u ...
polluter.
There have been numerous protests to close the plant.
References
Koch Industries
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