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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

FBI, Pentagon Accused Of Poisoning Lake

CHICAGO (CN) - For 90 years the FBI and the Department of Defense have polluted Lake Michigan with lead bullets at the FBI station in North Chicago, endangering the public water supply, and the Blue Eco Legal Council asks the Federal Court to order the polluters pay $35.2 million to assess and remove the toxins, plus another $20 million for damages to public resources.

This complaint apparently was sparked by 18 live-fire training exercises the U.S. Coast Guard conducted on all five Great Lakes in 2006, during which it shot 62,584 bullets - more than 800 lbs. of them - into U.S. waters. It did it without a permit, and could not get a permit to do it, under the Clean Water Act, the complaint states.

Co-plaintiff Steven Pollack is a member of Blue Eco and lives near the FBI facility in North Chicago. He claims that the defendant Department of Justice admitted in a Sept. 11, 2007 letter to him that the FBI, Navy and Marines have been shooting bullets into 2,975 acres of Lake Michigan since 1918, and that they continue to shoot bullets into this water, and other public water, without a permit.

Pollack claims there are two public water intakes near the area the FBI has marked as a "Danger Zone," and that "The City of North Chicago's last water quality report detected the presence of lead in the public water supply."

See complaint.

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