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Hegewisch Organized to Protect the Environment, (HOPE), was organized to oppose Waste Management's CID Landfill. People for Community Recovery, (PCR, Altgeld Gardens), was organized around the issue of the arsenic wells in Maryland Manor on the Calumet River.

In 1983 Chicago's first landfill moratorium was enacted. They followed a large rally organized by UNO at St. Kevin's Church in South Deering. Then in 1985 Citizens United to Reclaim the Environment, (also known as CURE), was formed. It was a coalition of Southeast Side organizations, including Committee to Protect the Prairie, HOPE, PCR, Pullman Civic Organization, later joined by Calumet City Cares and Calumet Citizens for Environmental Protection. CURE's first campaign was to oppose Waste Management's application to put a landfill in the Big Marsh.

In 1986 the Mayor's Solid Waste Task Force issued a report stating that Chicago would need one more landfill, and the only likely location would be O'Brien Lock, at 134^th Street on the Calumet River. In 1988 the Mayor's Southeast Side Task Force on Waste Disposal held a series of public meetings on the Southeast Side to promote the idea of a landfill at O'Brien Lock. CURE organized vigorously to oppose with a slogan of "No Dumps, No Deals!"  CURE put an advisory referendum on the 10^th Ward November ballot stating that there should be no new landfills on the Southeast Side. It passed overwhelmingly.

In 1989 the Southeast Environmental Task Force, later changed to the 32^nd District Environmental Task Force was formed. Thirty grassroots organizations signed on to a position that no garbage incinerator should be planned for the Wisconsin Steel site.  In 1990 new organizations were springing up like mushrooms because of the Lake Calumet Airport proposal becoming the focus of the environmental movement. This airport would have wiped out Hegewisch and most of Burnham and portions of Calumet City.

In 1992 the Lake Calumet Airport proposal was defeated. In December, 200 people attended a meeting to hear Dr. James Landing's proposal for a Calumet Ecological Park, which had just been endorsed by Sun-Times columnist Dennis Byrne. In 1993 the Calumet Ecological Park Association was formed to promote the ecological park concept. Efforts began to get the attention of Congress for a feasibility study. Then in 1994 the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District began negotiations with the Waste Management for a co-disposal landfill (sewage and garbage) at O'Brien Lock. Environmentalists took a busload of people to a Commissioners' meeting to oppose the plan. The Commissioners decided on a motion by Jo Gardner to put the negotiations on the back burner and hold a public meeting in the community. 200 people came to a meeting at Rowan Park, all strongly opposed to the landfill. And that was the end of that.

In 1998 a National Park Service feasibility study for the Ecological Park was issued in August. It found that the Calumet region is suitable for designation as a National Heritage Area. In 1999 the Lake Calumet Ecosystem Partnership was formed. The Calumet Heritage Partnership was also formed. Also the Chicago Department of Environment announced plans to build an Environmental Center in the Lake Calumet area. In the year 2000 the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois announced an initiative to preserve 3,000 acres of open land for ecological management, and to develop 3,000 acres of brownfields for industrial use. The Chicago Department of Environment announced an initiative to develop an Ecological Management Strategy for the Lake Calumet wetlands. Also the Chicago Department of Planning and Development unveiled a land use plan for the Southeast Side. Numerous community based groups are active in the area. The Friends of Wolf Lake have begun a movement to foster a bistate program to improve the lake. They recently released a vision document summarizing their goals. (Article by Eva R. - Information from Marian Byrnes)
 

From Dr. James Landing - When the Lake Calumet Study Committee was founded in 1980 we scoured southeast Chicago, Burnham, and Calumet City for local groups that were already involved in something we would call "environmental work."  We found a few:  the Gegewisch Steering Committee; Committee to Protect the Prairie; and some members of the Burnham Zoning Board of Appeals who were attempting to fight a garbage dump proposed by Waste Management.  The only one that had actually been involved so far in any public action was the Hegewisch Steering Committee which twice had made successful appeals to the US Army Corps of Engineers to deny permits to the Heil Company from Bloomingdale for the construction of a garbage dump on the Hegewisch Marsh.  Their leaders were Virginia Cap, Susan Sosnoski, and Violet Czachorski of Hegewisch, and John Young of Avalon Trails.  At that time Ald. Vrdolyak persuaded Waste Management to purchase the property and hold it to reduce the garbage dump tension.  The Committee to Protect the Prairie consisted of Marian Byrnes, John Taylor, and several others, but they made no efforts outside the Jeffrey Manor community.  To my knowledge People for Community Recovery, led by Hazel Johnson and her daughter, Cheryl, did not exist, since I did not find out about them until they were forming, and the information was passed to me by the 9th Ward office.  Ninth Ward Alderman Percy Hutchinson's aide, Renee Heath, was constantly involved in pro-environmental activities, as was her friend Judy Gardner.  The Hegewisch Steering Committee held top positions in the Lake Calumet Study Committee until its dissolution in early 1981.  
     
The first involvement of the Lake Calumet Study Committee took place in 1981 when the Burnham Zoning Board of Appeals was persuaded to vote against zoning for Waste Management's garbage dump proposal.  After a lot of persuasion, appeals, etc., the Village Board upheld that decision.  Mary Lucas was the heroine of that fight, since she ws the member of the Zoning Board of Appeals that led the group to deny the zoning.  

During the period of the Lake Calumet Study Committee not one acre of targetted wetlands was lost to industry or municipal purposes.  They are all still there.