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Cook County judge rules Trump Tower violated Illinois Environmental Protection Act

By and Jenna Carroll
Published  September 11, 2024 5:31pm CDT
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FOX 32 Chicago

Chicagos Trump Tower violated environmental laws, judge rules

A Cook County judge ruled on Monday that Trump International Hotel & Tower violated the Illinois Environmental Protection Act.

The Brief

    • A Cook County judge ruled that Trump International Hotel & Tower violated the Illinois Environmental Protection Act by failing to follow permit requirements aimed at protecting aquatic life, resulting in significant harm to fish and other organisms in the Chicago River.
    • The lawsuit, filed in 2018 by Friends of the Chicago River, the Sierra Club, and the Illinois Attorney General, revealed that Trump Tower failed to minimize the environmental impact of its cooling water intake system, leading to the deaths of thousands of aquatic organisms.
    • The court found Trump Tower liable for creating a public nuisance by violating state and federal environmental laws since 2008, with the building's water withdrawals exceeding reported levels by 44 percent for over a decade.

CHICAGO - A Cook County judge ruled on Monday that Trump International Hotel & Tower violated the Illinois Environmental Protection Act.

In 2018, Friends of the Chicago River, the Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter, and the Illinois Attorney General filed a lawsuit against Trump International Hotel & Tower after the Sierra Club found cooling water intake permit violations during a routine permit review.

"Trump Tower ignored and violated federal and state laws and regulations that require buildings using systems like Trump Tower’s to be designed to minimize impacts on aquatic life, secure permits, operate with protective measures that minimize damage to fish and other aquatic organisms from water intake structures, and prevent harmful heat pollution from its discharges back to the river," said Tim Touhy, Communications Director of Friends of the Chicago River, in a news release.

Trump Tower can draw in up to about 21 million gallons of water from the Chicago River every day to cool the building. Additionally, it is one of the largest users of water from the Chicago River for cooling. 

"If you don't have the proper technology at the interface with the river, where you're drawing the water in, you can actually trap and pull into this system fish and other aquatic life that end up in the system, or they actually get stuck on the screens and so you kill the wildlife that gets drawn in," said Margaret Frisbie, Friends of the Chicago River’s executive director.

By failing to follow the permit requirements, thousands of fish and other aquatic organisms died after being sucked into the building's cooling system by the intake structure or trapped against its screens.

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"We do know that thousands and thousands of fish and other aquatic organisms would have died from this system," said Frisbie.

Additionally, Trump Tower failed to accurately compute and report the rate at which the building's cooling system withdraws water by about 44 percent for more than 10 years.

According to the ruling on Monday, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Thaddeus L. Wilson found that Trump International Hotel & Tower "committed a continuing public nuisance through a series of failures to comply with state and federal law dating back to 2008."

"Judge Wilson’s decision brings us close to the end of a six-year journey to bring justice to the wildlife for whom these laws were designed to protect and the people who enjoy this wildlife," said Frisbie. "The Trump Tower’s complete disregard for the rules carelessly killed countless creatures and degraded the value of the significant public investments over decades to bring about the healthy transformation of the river for people, fish, and other aquatic wildlife."

Judge Wilson said the evidence was uncontested that Trump Tower was liable on all remaining counts brought by Friends of the Chicago River, the Sierra Club, Illinois Chapter, and the State of Illinois. 

"It also will demonstrate to other people you can't get away with this – not in the Chicago area, because we're watching," said Frisbie.

FOX 32 Chicago has reached out to a spokesperson for Trump Tower for comment but has not heard back.

The Source

  • FOX 32 Chicago has been following this story since the lawsuit was filed in 2018. On Wednesday, FOX 32 received a news release from Tim Touhy, Communications Director of Friends of the Chicago River, about the ruling.