Mayor Brandon Johnson is challenging a recent judge’s ruling that a Southeast Side metal-shredding operation should be allowed to operate.

The city has filed a lawsuit in Cook County circuit court Friday against one of its own departments, the Chicago Department of Administrative Hearings, after a judge there ruled June 1 that a controversial scrap metal operation, formerly known as General Iron, should be allowed to open at East 116th Street along the Calumet River. The business is also named as a defendant.

Former Mayor Lori Lightfoot blocked the business from opening after a firestorm of protest from community, health and environmental activists who argued that moving a source of pollution from Lincoln Park to a Southeast Side community already suffering from poor air quality was unfair.

Community organizers took the case a step further and filed a civil rights complaint with federal housing officials in 2020. Last year, the feds found that the city has engaged in racist planning, zoning and land-use practices and demanded Chicago change its ways. Just before leaving office, Lightfoot came to an agreement with the feds.

Reserve Management Group, which acquired General Iron in 2019, appealed Lightfoot’s decision on the permit in an administrative hearings court run by the city. Lawyers for the business successfully persuaded the judge that the permit should’ve been awarded on technical grounds. They argued Lightfoot was making a purely political decision.

The same day that ruling was made, Johnson vowed to take the case to circuit court.

The recent administrative hearings decision set off another round of protests. Protesters showed up at City Hall a few days after the permit ruling calling for Johnson to take action.

Brett Chase’s reporting on the environment and public health is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.