The tar sands refining by-product petroleum coke, known as petcoke, gained attention earlier this year when piles of the toxic substance stored along Detroit’s riverfront were mounding up and causing high-carbon, high-sulfur clouds to blanket neighborhoods.

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Now toxic mounds of the substance are piling up in Chicago, specifically on the city’s southeast side along the Calumet River.

Like the ones in Detroit, Chicago’s black piles of petcoke are thanks to the Alberta tar sands and the Koch Brothers, and local residents are sounding the alarm about the coal-like substance’s health and environmental impacts.

As Oil Change International explains,

The petcoke starts off in a BP refining facility in Whiting, Indiana. Then, the Chicago Tribune reports,

The problem is likely to get worse, as BP has plans to triple the amount stored in the city by the end of the year.

Kari Lydersen reports in Midwest Energy News:

It’s not just the locals’ perception. The Chicago Tribune continues:

Writing in NRDC’s Switchboard blog, Henry Henderson asks:

A report issued this summer from Oil Change International warned that because of the production of petcoke as a result of tar sands refining, the impact of the Keystone XL is much more disastrous for the planet than previously thought, putting a “strong nail in the coffin of any rational argument for the further exploitation of the tar sands.”

WTTW has video, which includes shots of a recent dust storm that sent huge clouds of dust from the petcoke into the air:

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