Will County OKs oil terminal site despite residents’ concerns

Ducere LLC plans to begin construction an oil terminal that could open in late 2024 in Lockport Township after getting needed special use permits from the Will County Board.

The County Board on Wednesday approved the permits for a strip of land running between the Des Plaines River and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. The land stretches past both sides of the 9th Street bridge, which carries Route 7 over the waterway and into Lockport.

“This project is actually going to be across from one of the oldest neighborhoods in Lockport,” Sandy Burcenski, one of several speakers against the terminal, told the County Board at a public hearing before the vote. Burcenski lives in the neighborhood known as as the West Side.

Several of the speakers, including Burcenski, were members of Lockport-based Citizens Against Ruining the Environment.

Opponents said the terminal poses an environmental risk because of the potential for spills and urged against providing support for fossil-fuel infrastructure.

Ducere President and CEO Dave Nelson said barge transportation is safer than the alternative of moving oil by rail.

He said the terminal would have the capacity to handle six barges daily carrying the equivalent of the amount of oil as 18 trains with 100 tank cars. Each barge can carry between 21,000 and 22,000 barrels of oil, Nelson said.

The terminal will take about a year to build, he said.

“We’re going to try to start construction later this year once we get the special use permits,” Nelson said.

The terminal already has necessary approvals from the state and federal government, he said. Ducere also previously obtained the county special use permits, but they had expired over time because the project had not started, he said.

The terminal will be connected to an Enbridge pipeline carrying oil from Canada and North Dakota.

The County Board vote was 15-4 in favor of the special use permits.

Member Julie Berkowicz, R-Naperville, read a letter she received from the Will County Emergency Management Agency regarding the project before voting for the permits. Berkowicz said she believed the county is prepared for any hazardous incidents if they did occur.

“Our EMA is comfortable with this case,” she said. “They don’t have any concerns about this.”

Member Destinee Ortiz, D-Romeoville, read a statement saying the most hazardous oil spills have been from boats and that the terminal was being located in an environmental justice community, so defined because of the proportion of low-income people of color living there.

Ortiz said the terminal location “is not fair to low-income Black and Hispanic people.”

She voted no along with Sherry Williams, D-Crest Hill, Jacquelyne Traynere, D-Bolingbrook, and Janet Diaz, D-Joliet.

Matthew Ruhter, an attorney with Openlands, argued that the county should not support further development of an infrastructure for fossil fuel usage.

“It seems like the world is going away from fossil fuel,” Ruhter said. “Yet, you’re going to commit land to fossil fuel infrastructure.”